See Rojo Pacific’s new ‘ clean and green’ Kavalan printable coated textiles at PrintEx

Australian media supplier Rojo Pacific has announced the addition of new ‘clean and green’ Kavalan printable coated textiles to its existing extensive range, to be featured at PrintEx.

It was a couple of years ago now that Rojo Pacific’s John Wright really started to notice a surge in the number of enquiries his company was receiving about eco-friendly materials which could be used as an alternative to PVC coated fabrics and vinyls.

With the launch of the Kavalan range at PrintEx19 in Sydney next month, John says he’ll be the first in Australia to provide print, sign and display businesses with a genuinely viable answer: a high quality, cost-effective and completely PVC-free alternative for everything from banners and flags, to backlit panels, wall and even window graphics.

“PVC composite fabrics are fantastic performers, but they do have a reputation for being complex and expensive to recycle,” John concedes, “and the properties of PVC are simply not necessary for every application.”

While not quite as durable as PVC for heavy duty or outdoor use, John says Kavalan, from international specialist textile manufacturer, TAYA Canvas, provides an ideal alternative for indoor or sheltered applications, interchangeable graphics for marketing campaigns, or shorter-term outdoor use – and can then be recycled after use.

“Kavalan is lightweight, totally PVC and phthalate-free, biodegradable and 100% ‘clean and green’,” John says, explaining that the range – which was launched at FESPA 2017 – replaces the usual PVC film coating with a unique, eco-friendly corn starch coating to create a reliable print-receptive layer.

“These materials can be used with UV, Latex or dye-sublimation inks for outstanding print quality and then, at the end of their useful life, they can be recycled without the use of solvents. Disposal is easy on the environment too – Kavalan can be incinerated without releasing harmful chemicals – in fact, we know of companies that are putting it into their ‘waste-to-energy’ stream – and if it goes into landfill, its water-based PA coating is fully biodegradable.”

Rojo is bringing five of the Kavalan products to Australia and all will be on show on the Kavalan stand (Stand L20) at PrintEx19. These include:

- Sunlight, a grey-backed semi-block-out, weldable material for front-lit signage including banners, roll-up displays, display frame systems and exhibition graphics. It can be printed with direct or transfer dye-sublimation, UV or Latex printers and comes in widths up to 5m.

- Moonlight, a 200gsm coated fabric for backlit applications like lightboxes or banners.

- Butterfly, a two-sided banner fabric with a block-out core for high-impact double-sided banners and roll-up displays

- Gecko, a high-end fabric for wall or ceiling applications. All share a common maximum width of 5m and have been designed for large format digital UV and Latex printing; and

- Spiderweb, a 300gsm mesh banner material, which is ideal for window signage. It can also be printed with UV or LX inks, and has a maximum width of 3.2m.

“We’ve been working with TAYA for 15 years as their exclusive Australian agent for signage and industrial grades of PVC coated polyester fabrics and other specialised textiles, so we know them well and understand the quality of their R&D, their innovation and their manufacturing processes,” says John.

Kavalan will ideally complement the conventional products in the company’s trusted ROFAB and ROTEX ranges and, like KATZ paper-based display board and other products Rojo has debuted in Australia, reflects the company’s commitment to innovation, sustainability and ‘world’s best practice’ operation.

“The Kavalan launch is in line with the Business as Best Practice commitment we made in 2013 – that ‘where we can make better choices, we will,” adds John.

“We are a family company and we are absolutely dedicated to doing what we can to safeguard the future by incorporating life cycle thinking into every aspect of our daily business activities. So, when we are sourcing new products, we are not just looking for higher quality materials that deliver better performance and reliability, but also for sustainability. Kavalan answers those criteria.”