Tech giant HP pledged to invest $200m over the next five or so years to develop water-based ink technologies for printing digitally on corrugated packaging and textiles, it announced this week.

Traditional means of colouring textiles are frequently damaging to the environment. Garment manufacturing is responsible for 20% of industrial water pollution, according to estimates by the World Resources Institute.  

HP’s “true water-based inks” for corrugated packaging have already proven successful for sensitive applications such as food packaging, the company claimed. HP is committing resources to the next major generation of ink, printhead and press technology out of a belief that water-based solutions are the long-term future of this market, it said. 

 “We will be dedicating resources toward continued innovation and industry disruption to accelerate safer, simpler and more sustainable water-based printing technologies that meet the quality, performance and economics needed by these markets,” said HP general manager and global head of graphics solutions, Santi Morera. 

HP believes that investing in water-based ink solutions for the corrugate and textile printing markets will have beneficial effects along the entire product lifecycle, for the people who operate its printing systems, for the end users of the printed product, and ultimately for the final reuse, recycling, or disposal of that product, it added.