Ecstasy With Your Poster? Inkjet Chemical May Be Addictive

By Bob Neubauer

A proposal before the British Parliament intended to control a substance linked to crime and accidental deaths is causing concern in the wide-format community because of the chemical’s presence in ecosolvent inkjet inks.

With the intent of reducing misuse of two substances – gamma butyrolactone (GBL), also known as liquid ecstasy, and 1,4-butanediol (BDO) – the proposal recommends licenses be required for their import, export, production, supply and possession, according to an article in PrintWeek.

“Epson is deeply concerned about the impact these measures could have not only to its own business, but on its customers and indeed the U.K. print signage industry as a whole,” said Epson in a statement to PrintWeek. “We believe it would be extremely difficult for GBL to be extracted from our ink due to its chemical formulation.”

Read the full story in PrintWeek.

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Bob Neubauer Author's page

Bob has served as editor of In-plant Impressions since October of 1994. Prior to that he served for three years as managing editor of Printing Impressions, a commercial printing publication. Mr. Neubauer is very active in the U.S. in-plant industry. He attends all the major in-plant conferences and has visited more than 170 in-plant operations around the world. He has given presentations to numerous in-plant groups in the U.S., Canada and Australia, including the Association of College and University Printers and the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association. He also coordinates the annual In-Print contest, co-sponsored by IPMA and In-plant Impressions.