There are about 20,000 graphic art screen printing shops in the United States.
Screen printing involves stretching a porous mesh material over a frame to form a screen.
The use of these solvents, however, can pose potential risks to the people who work with them and to the environment. Printers, EPA, product manufacturers, and the screen printing trade association are all concerned with minimizing the environmental and health risks of screen reclamation chemicals currently used in screen printing shops. DfE's goal in working with screen printers is to help them make more informed choices, now and in the future, by promoting the search for and evaluation of cleaner products, processes, and technologies. This effort ultimately grew into two separate projects aimed at preventing pollution in the industry, one focused on the screen printing sector and the other on the lithography sector. Each project addresses a different area of environmental concern in the printing process.