This is the new and super cheap way of 'decorating apparel' sweeping our industry. DTF, which stands for ‘Direct To Film’. An image is printed on a plastic sheet of plastic then covered in a toxic adhesive powder that is also plastic. This sheet of plastic of plastic is then heat pressed to the shirt, melting the plastic adhesive image onto the shirt like a sticker. What's left is an unrecyclable sheet of plastic that's covered in toxic adhesive powder for every shirt. Think about that, every shirt produced leaves a sheet of plastic covered in toxic adhesive that goes in the landfill. TERRIBLE! As you can imagine, wearing a DTF shirt feels like you're wearing a plastic sticker on your shirt. DTF prints last around 50 washes before they start to peel off. DTF prints don’t last nearly as long as screen prints, and durability is a core component of sustainability. Things need to last as long as possible before they ultimately end up in the ground - THE PRINT SHOULD LAST THE LIFE OF THE SHIRT- not fall off after 50 washes!

Discharge inks contain toxic chemicals like formaldehyde, a know human carcinogen. When cured, discharge inks off-gass CANCER CAUSING GASSES! Sulfur dioxide gas is another byproduct, which is a major air pollutant and big contributor to acid rain. The alternative to Formaldehyde is Thiourea-dioxide which comes in powder form and is FATAL IF INHALED. Also, these inks only have a shelf life of 6 to 8 hours anything that is not used in that time frame literally becomes toxic waste! Discharge ink essentially bleaches the shirt and all these toxic chemicals leach through the fibers and rub up against your skin when you're wearing the shirt. I doubt anyone would knowingly want to have fabric soaked with toxic chemicals touching their skin all day!

There is way too much plastic in the world and every day tens of thousands of shirts are literally covered in plastic by printers using plastisol inks. Plastisol ink starts off as liquid plastic in a bucket, then gets screen printed onto shirts and heated up to 320 degrees to become solid plastic. Printers like these inks because they’re cheap and they don’t dry until this ink is cured, which makes them easier to use. Plastic doesn’t breathe and is weirdly stiff – why would anyone want to wear a sheet of plastic on their shirt all day? I don’t think anybody wants to sweat more because of the shirt they’re wearing. These plastic prints go into the washing machine, where over time they break down and shed microplastics into the water system as the print cracks and eventually falls off the shirt. Think about what’s happening here, cotton, a natural 100% plant based fiber is getting covered in plastic, it sounds insane… because it is!

DTG stands for ‘Direct To Garment’, it’s a digital print done with an ink jet printer (similar to the one you likely have at home) directly on the shirt. The process starts off with spraying smelly chemicals on the shirt so the ink will stick. After this is done, the shirt is loaded into the printer where it gets sprayed again with tiny dot’s of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black dots to mimic the color in any given design. These inks are not as bad as plastisol, not as wasteful as DTF, and not as toxic as discharge inks but ultimately they are low quality prints that don't last very long or look very good. DTG PRINTS ONLY LAST 30-40 WASHES! Again, things need to last as long as possible before they ultimately end up in the ground - THE PRINT SHOULD LAST THE LIFE OF THE SHIRT - not crack, peel, and ultimately fall off after just 30-40 washed like DTG do!