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3D printer recycled material
Eco-friendly 3D filament guide - what are the possibilities and innovations
What is eco-friendly 3D filament?
Eco-friendly 3D filament is a new alternative to the classic plastic filament. 3D printing requires a lot of energy and often uses non-biodegradable materials. For example, ABS is made from petroleum. It is one of the most common 3D printing materials when it comes to filament extrusion.
However, innovations now offer the opportunity to 3D print ecologically and responsibly at a lower cost. Many biodegradable filaments, made from recycled materials, have been developed to be environmentally friendly and have become alternatives to plastic filaments.
By incorporating a biodegradable plastic base (in the form of fibers or powders), it is possible to create filaments that include a high percentage of organic material.
3D printing from recycled plastics
How to make 3D printing materials from plastic waste
Thanks to Tyler McNaney’s Filabot, or MIT’s Recyclebot, it is possible to create ecological filament at home by recycling plastic waste. These machines turn waste into a 3D filament that a 3D printer can use.
A bottle of milk recycled by the Filabot converts into 2.5 meters of 3D filament.
First, the machine crushes recyclable plastic waste (bottles, boxes, etc.) to transform it into plastic pellets (or granules). The recycling machine then heats and extrudes these pellets into the shape of filament. The filament is then wrapped around a spool so that it can be reused again by a 3D printer.
Reuse 3D printed objects and plastic print waste
3D printing requires patience and involves a lot of testing to perfectly configure a 3D printer and produce quality 3D models. Many of these tests result in print fails, extra material, supports, or simply old pieces that are no longer useful.
Plastic waste extruders such as the Filabot or ProtoCycler can recycle this plastic waste.
This innovation, with its ecological aspect, also represents a big cost saving for the users who can reduce their 3D filament expenses.
Buy 3D filament made from recycled materials
The Dutch startup Refil sells 3D filament made from two recycled plastics, ABS and PET. These two plastics mainly come from plastic bottles and car dashboards. This award-winning innovation is called Refilament.
According to Refil’s co-founder Casper van der Meer, the recycled filament (free of toxic additives), boasts the same features as ordinary filament and is available at a price between 30 and 40 dollars a spool.
Black ABS 3D filament produced by Refil from old car dashboards.3D printing with biodegradable 3D filament
PLA, a cornstarch-based 3D printing material
With ABS, PLA is the most commonly used 3D printing material when it comes to filament deposition.
PLA is made from cornstarch. It is compatible with most 3D printers using extrusion 3D printing technology.
Unlike ABS, PLA is a biodegradable material. Thanks to its non-toxicity, PLA can also be used to 3D print objects that will be in contact with food.
The main weakness of PLA is its high sensitivity to moisture and its tendency to break rather than bend. It makes it more difficult to handle than ABS.
Green and blue frogs 3D printed from PLA.Sustainable 3D printing: paper, an alternative to plastic
Mcor Technologies (now CleanGreen 3D) is a 3D printer manufacturer that has successfully made 3D printing material from paper. Their Laminar 3D printing technology successively cuts sheets of paper and glues them onto each other to 3D print an object.
Paper is not as environmentally friendly as PLA, but it is a serious alternative to more toxic materials. It also costs much less: a ton of paper costs around €1,300 while a ton of PLA costs between €5,000 and €10,000.
Plant-based 3D printing materials
Many plant-based filaments have been developed, such as the soy-based FilaSoy or SeaWeed, a material made from seaweed. The Algix from 3DFuel is also available and is made from nuisance algae.
Wood is also a material that is used to make natural 3D filaments. For example, Laywood is made up of 40% of wood, which gives it a touch and appearance similar to wood.
ColorFabb has even developed two 100% organic filaments: the WoodFill made up of 70% PLA and 30% wood fiber, and the BambooFill, half bamboo, and half PLA.
Finally, oysters and coconuts have also been experimentally used to create new 3D filaments.
A small 3D printed elephant made with ColorFabb’s Woodfill material.3D printing with recycled building materials
3D printed houses made from recycled concrete
The Chinese company WinSun Decoration Design Engineering received attention in 2014 by 3D printing ten houses in less than 24 hours.
These were 3D printed from a mix of cement, industrial waste, and recycled fiberglass. In 2015, they did it again, this time with a four-story building, and also succeeded in less than 24 hours.
In January 2018, the same company 3D printed bus stops at Fengjing Town in Shanghai.
In Amsterdam, a canal house was also 3D printed by DUS Architects in 2016. This house, designed in partnership with Henkel, is 3D printed with bioplastics. It consists of 80% ecological materials.
Examples: two innovative projects to recycle plastic waste
An eco-friendly 3D printer launched by Coca-Cola, 3D Systems, and will.i.am
will.i.am, who was previously creative director of the 3D printer manufacturer 3D Systems, had teamed up with Coca-Cola to create Ekocycle.
The Ekocycle is a 3D printer that uses a 3D filament, of which 25% is made from recycled plastic bottles.
“Ekocycle’s goal is to collaborate with the world’s most influential brands and use technology, art, and fashion to change an entire culture. It’s the beginning of a more sustainable lifestyle through 3D printing. Waste is waste only if we waste it.”
will.i.am
Ekocycle will be able to 3D print objects with a build volume of one hundred cubic centimeters, with a minimum layer thickness of 70 microns.
Three 500ml Coca-Cola bottles are needed to make one Ekocycle cartridge. The available colors Coca-Cola’s emblematic colors: red, black, and white.
will.i.am, a founding member of the Black Eyed Peas and 3D Systems’ previous artistic director, presenting the Ekocycle eco-friendly 3D printer.Clean beaches and 3D printed souvenirs of the sea
In 2014, two Swiss entrepreneurs, Jennifer Gadient and Fabian Wyss, launched the Seafood Project.
This project aimed to clean the beaches of France, Spain, and Morocco by recycling all plastic waste into 3D printed objects.
The couple left France in October 2014 and drove down to Morocco in their van, in which they had all the necessary equipment for 3D printing.
On the beaches, they recovered plugs, bottles, and other plastic waste. With the help of an extruder and a shredder, they transformed this waste into 3D filament. They then 3D printed objects with an Ultimaker 3D printer and sold them on their website.
Picture of Jennifer Gadient and Fabian Wyss in front of their van, equipped with a 3D printer to recycle plastic waste from beaches.Can you recycle 3D printer plastics?
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Today, there are two ways to recycle 3D printed parts.
You can turn the plastic back into material that can be reused for 3D printing. Or you can use the recycled plastic to make objects used in other manufacturing processes, such as injection molding.
The extent to which your plastic waste materials can be recycled depends on the type of 3D printing you choose.
There are also an increasing number of opportunities to recycle materials, as an exciting collaboration between HP and the Ford Motor Company demonstrates.
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Understanding plastic recycling
You can split 3D printing plastic materials into thermoplastics, thermoset plastics and, elastomers.
Thermoplastics
Thermoplastics are used by nearly all Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) 3D printers because when they’re heated past their melting temperature, they become pliable and workable. They are also used by powder bed fusion processes like Multi Jet Fusion (MJF) or Selective Laser Sintering (SLS).
Thermoplastics don’t need to be cured which means that, in theory, the polymers can be re-melted and recycled.
But different thermoplastics are easier to recycle than others, and not all recycling facilities are able to recycle the same materials.
Thermoset plastics
Thermosets are materials like polyurethane or silicone that are molded and then cured. They’re most commonly found in the resin used for vat polymerization 3D printing processes such as Stereolithography (SLA).
It’s often the case that thermoset plastics need curing. While this makes them perfect for high temperatures, it also means that they can’t be recycled with current recycling methods.
Elastomers
Elastomers can be natural – rubber, for instance – or synthetic, such as thermoplastic elastomer (TPE). There are also thermoplastic rubbers, a type of copolymer made with rubber and plastic. They aren’t widely used in 3D printing and are not recyclable.
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Is 3D printing filament recyclable?
Nearly all 3D printer filaments, including nylon and polycarbonate, are classified Type 7 or “Other” by standards organization ASTM International and are not typically recycled by municipal programs. This includes acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), polylactic acid (PLA), and polyethylene terephthalate glycol (PETG).
Polypropylene (PP), used in 3D printing for printed parts that are durable, water-tight or light, is recycled in some municipalities.
Some materials recovery facilities do pick up #7 curbside, but 3D printed parts will need to be marked with a Resin Identification Code (RIC). This is a code inside a triangle seen on almost all plastic products that identify different types of plastic.
If you don’t use an RIC, your potentially recyclable 3D printed parts containing recyclable filaments will be unmarked and will not be collected curbside.
The best way to find out if your local materials recovery facility will recycle 3D printed objects made from ABS, PLA, PETG, or nylon is to ask them — and also to ask your material supplier for waste characterization guidance.
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Designing to reduce plastic waste
Disposing of your 3D printing waste can be a challenge. The trick is to do your best to prevent it in the first place by designing parts intelligently:
- You can eliminate supports wherever you can or design them into the part itself.
- When choosing your industrial 3D printer, consider powder bed 3D printing technologies like MJF that can print large builds filled with hundreds of items.
- Where the print bed is the support base for the 3D printed part you’re building – with Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) or Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF), for instance — always make sure the beginning layers are adhering to the bed. If they’re not, there’s more chance of failed prints and wasted parts.
Make sure your printer is maintained regularly so it’s reliable and there’s less chance of print failure.
Learn more about how to design parts to reduce material usage by reading our articles on “Design for Additive Manufacturing” and “How expensive is a 3D printer to maintain?”
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Case study: Transforming 3D waste into automotive parts — an industry first
Since early 2021, HP and the Ford Motor Company — together with international oral care leader, SmileDirectClub and resin producer, Lavergne - have been pioneering the recycling of 3D printer waste into low-volume vehicle parts.
The parts have better chemical and moisture resistance than conventional versions, are 7% lighter and cost 10% less.
The process involves Lavergne, a longtime recycling partner of HP, transforming SmileDirectClub’s dental aligner molds (3D printed with HP Multi Jet Fusion) into high-quality recycled plastic pellets, that can then be used for injection molding of fuel-line clips for Ford. This remarkable new approach has the potential to revolutionize customization of low-volume vehicle parts and accelerate sustainability.
HP and Ford have already identified at least ten other fuel-line clips on other Ford vehicles suitable for being made with 3D printing waste and are working on injection molding those designs.
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Want to continue learning?
9 Projects 3D Printing From Plastic Waste
Plastic waste, which not so long ago went straight to landfill, is increasingly being recycled, not least 3D printers.
By using post-consumer plastic as a raw material for 3D printing, corporations, small businesses and even individuals can create new products with real value while removing plastic waste from the environment. Let's figure out what is created from plastic waste using a 3D printer and who does it.
How to prepare material for 3D printing from plastic waste
The process of making useful products from local plastic waste using 3D printing is quite simple. Known as distributed recycling and additive manufacturing, or DRAM for short, it involves the following steps:
• Plastic waste collection.
• Waste sorting and cleaning.
• Shredding waste into plastic pieces.
• Extruding 3D printing filament from plastic shred with an extruder.
• Product printing.
Video: thenewraw.
org
Thread made in this way retains almost all the same qualities as pure plastic, but is much cheaper. According to a study by Aubrey L. Verne (et al.) of Michigan Technological University, a 3D printer can print objects at a cost 1,000 times less than if commercial polymer fibers were used.
There are different types of shredders, extruders and 3D printers on the market today, both in terms of cost and complexity of the tasks performed.
For example, for home use, manufacturers have long used a simple blender or grinder to grind up 3D print stock and failed prints, but this is not a long-term or high-volume solution.
More and more 3D printers can print with raw shredded plastic or bulky plastic pellets instead of filament. This simplifies the process and reduces energy consumption. The cost of a simple 3D printer can be $2,000, and a complex industrial one can cost more than $150,000.
Introducing 9 successful projects that prove that 3D printing from household plastic waste is a viable solution for removing plastic from the environment, while also making a difference.
Plastic Bottle Olympic Podiums
Unbeknownst to everyone, recycled plastic has taken center stage at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Each of the 98 podiums where medals were presented to Olympic winners was 3D printed from waste plastic.
Catwalk material has been collected by Japanese citizens over the past two years through a program sponsored by consumer goods giant Proctor & Gamble. More than 2,000 bins have been set up across the country to collect empty drink bottles, shampoo containers and other plastic waste. Plastic waste has also been fished out of the seas surrounding Japan.
After the games, some of the podium plastic will be used to educate the public about sustainability, and much of it will be recycled back into packaging for P&G products.
Plastic waste bins
Screenshot: 3D printed waste bin by Justina Zdanovichute, in collaboration with R3direct.
(Source: Justyna Zdanovichute/CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
How about collecting plastic waste in trash cans made from the same waste? Italian design company R3direct makes them and more using 3D printing. The company has one stated goal: to design and 3D print products from plastic waste. R3direct's product list grows longer every year, from artwork made from local plastic waste to practical urban furniture.
R3direct states that their printing technology can use plastic pellets immediately after grinding, skipping the filament extrusion step. This allows them to further reduce their energy consumption and CO2 emissions with 3D printed furniture made from waste plastic.
Trendy Fishnet Seats
Photo: facebook/@bluecycle use of marine plastic waste from shipping and fishing.
New Raw has also teamed up with The Coca-Cola Company for the Zero Waste Future program in Thessaloniki, Greece. Consumers will bring their plastic waste to the Zero Waste Lab, which has a plastic recycling facility and a robotic arm, to create custom-made modern furniture.
One of the partnership's furniture series is called Elements and includes a solarium, walk-in closet and walkway made from recycled marine plastic waste. There's no better way to showcase the potential of recycling plastic waste than to let people enjoy a clean beach while lying on a lounge chair made from what used to pollute the water.
New Raw is launching a Print Your City program in several neighborhoods that allows local residents to recycle their plastic waste through a robotic 3D printing process that can turn sorted plastic into outdoor furniture.
Music festival waste sunglasses frames
Photo: instagram/@yuma.labs.circular closed loop models.
Yuma Labs uses both powder pad 3D printing and injection molding to make their sunglasses. The raw materials are recycled soda bottles and bio-based nylon. In the future, the frames of sunglasses can be completely recycled.
Yuma Labs partners with companies, cities and events such as the Tomorrowland Music Festival to collect the plastic waste generated at the event.
And the sale of sunglasses, then printed on a 3D printer from this garbage, covers the cost of collecting plastic.
Yuma Labs also organizes and participates in community events to raise awareness about recycling. For example, in 2019 they organized an event at the Stormkop playground in Antwerp where children had to pull plastic trash from a nearby river. The company then 3D-printed it into children's sunglasses.
As Yuma Labs says, it's not just the production of sunglasses or the recycling of plastic that matters. They hope to inspire others with their example for a broader transition to a circular economy.
Plastic Waste Urban Lightweight Vehicle
Utility Vehicle (ZUV) is an electric trike with a 3D printed frame made from recycled polypropylene plastic.
Developed by Austrian design firm EOOS and Dutch 3D printing company The New Raw, ZUV aims to do more than reduce plastic waste.
Its creators hope it can become the new type of zero-emission vehicle for cities around the world.
According to the developer's plans, consumers can 3D print the ZUV's polypropylene frame using a 3D printing service such as Craft Cloud and then take it to a bike shop to have the motor, wheels, lights and handlebars installed.
The square ZUV has a rear wheel drive and a spacious trunk. It can be ridden by two adults. EOOS hopes to raise awareness of the environmental impact of urban transport and offer an alternative mode of transportation based on a circular economy. 9The 0003
ZUV is currently only in the prototype stage and its blocky look may not be to everyone's liking. However, the concept is promising, and the car has every chance of becoming an ordinary city landmark.
Coffee station made from coffee waste
Photo: lofbergs-com.mynewsdesk.com
Swedish coffee group Löfbergs is partnering with 3D printing company Sculptur to turn coffee waste into new coffee stations.
The collaboration is part of Circular Coffee Community's commitment and the group's goal of zero coffee waste by 2030. The world's first 3D printed waste-based coffee station is already up and running and others are underway.
The coffee stations are 3D printed from a by-product of the coffee roasting process and polypropylene. Further development will allow the use of polypropylene from recycled coffee big bags, making coffee stations almost 100% renewable.
“Our new coffee station is a prime example of a closed loop—recycling leftovers from our own primary raw material, coffee, to create an entirely new and associated sustainable product.” , says Lars Aen Tegersen, Director of Innovation and Circular Transformation at Löfbergs.
Cozy office space made from plastic bottles
Photo: instagram/@architechcompany interiors.
Modular circular workspace printed from recycled PET (supplied by the Port of Rotterdam) using a CFAM printer and reinforced with fiberglass.
The convenient and strong workplace easily disassembles and moves. The round shape ensures pleasant acoustics of the workspace, it is equipped with ventilation, heating, electricity and LED lighting.
Beautiful objects made from garbage
Photo: instagram/@therogerie
Canadian company The Rogerie is working to remove waste from the environment, with the help of small suppliers who remove it from landfills and oceans, and create from this waste beautiful, useful items.
The Rogerie's 3D printed product catalog includes mugs, bathroom accessories, teapots and a wide selection of flower pots, among others. Customers love these products - by purchasing them they are contributing to the removal of plastic waste from the environment.
The company's founders say they are constantly looking for new waste streams and also have their own recycling program. They are willing to use anything from old TVs to food packaging and car parts.
Coffee stirrer chandeliers
Photo: instagram/@utilizestudios
The Utilize project turned used coffee stirrers into chandeliers, soft plastic items into wicker baskets, and fishing tackle into chairs.
And all this with the help of an oven and a desktop 3D printer from Ultimaker.
Utilize is more than a design studio, it specializes in helping companies transition to a circular economy and build sustainable products. They aim to help businesses reduce, reuse and recycle waste through 3D printing.
“The biggest surprise was how many types of waste we can use – soft plastics, organics, polypropylenes and polyethylenes – we kind of asked, why isn’t everyone doing this?” , said Utilize Project founder Matthew O'Hagan in an interview with Stuff magazine. - "Why isn't this being done?" . Will Amos along with co-founders Aldrin Lupisan and Sharon To, became innovators in the field of 3D printing and additive manufacturing, just a few years after graduation.
“We started in 2018, right out of college, by finding a way to recycle red “party” plastic cups into 3D printing filament. That idea has now grown into a pretty cool company that takes plastic waste and turns it into 3D printable material.
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For 4 years, Closed Loop Plastics has been creating new materials, new colors and enabling anyone with access to a 3D printer to participate in the circular economy by printing with their products.
"We give people access to certified and fully sustainable materials right in their printers without any major adjustments or changes to their process."
Will tells the story of how CLP was born:
“I started 3D printing in 2015 as part of the UC Irvine team for the Solar Decathlon, which is a competition for building solar-powered houses. . I was put in charge of the tool room of the future, mostly because I was a sophomore engineer and didn't know much, so I took Aldrin and a few other college buddies with me and created this tool room. As a prize, we were presented with a 3D printer, and then for the first time we thought: “Well, we are environmental engineers, and this is an environmentally friendly economy. How can we make 3D printing sustainable? It was a neat prototype tool, but it used a lot of plastic, so we wanted to find a solution to recycle the plastic that goes back into the 3D printer.
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“The first thing we did was think about recycling. At first we recycled printed plastic, but then we realized that we do not have a critical mass of plastic waste from 3D printing alone. We figured out how to use waste from other sources, such as food containers, to really solve this problem and create a high performance polystyrene (HIPS) recycling element. We made it possible for people to use material for really interesting purposes, instead of sending it to the landfill. So we started thinking about how to make 3D printing green, and then it became clear that our job was to figure out how to make the use of plastic generally green on our planet.
Our ideas have definitely gone big. To give you an idea, our first product we were going to sell as a company was a recycling cart (similar to an audio visual cart) and the idea was that it could be rolled around a plastic waste recycling lab. It's been a few years, and now we've reached the point where we're applying for municipal bonds to build county-level infrastructure so CLP can build these businesses that recycle hundreds of thousands of people's plastic waste every day.
When we think about it, it's amazing.
We have moved from a decentralized lab-based approach to a wastewater infrastructure-based approach. I think that's cool, and it reflects the education that Aldrin and I received as environmental engineers, combined with our other co-founder, Sharon To, with a computer engineer background. Aldrin and I can think in terms of large-scale infrastructure, and Sharon can think in terms of focused control systems, and all this has led to successful team dynamics. We trust each other and our skills, which allows us to change direction as needed and expand our scope.”
Closed Loop Plastics was originally focused on high impact polystyrene (HIPS) material (as Will explains below), but its use opens up endless possibilities for almost all plastics.
“We chose HIPS because we needed a recycled plastic that was not so specific that it could only be used in 3D printing. We wanted something that could be used in 3D printing, but not only in it.
. HIPS plastic is a widely used material for supports or for rough 3D printing. We wanted to try recycling it because it's a great thermoplastic and very easy to recycle in its original state.
After we settled on HIPS, we needed to focus on getting it clean and ready for 3D printing. We first offered it in Party Pink, which was an unpigmented color, essentially a mix of all the different HIPS plastics we put in our system. As our clients grew, they were interested in additional colors, and then we added Nebula Black. This was our first experience of introducing any additives into the process. It was a great experience that made us learn a lot. There were blockages here, there were running out of machine parts, but we realized that we could create a new, differentiated product. We are still testing for other colors and even new materials. We are going to test 3D products with new plastics like PLA, PETG and ABS. We are constantly thinking about making something more accessible to the market, because HIPS is not as widely used as other types of plastic.
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CLP ensures the quality of its filament by monitoring the diameter and dynamically controlling the output. Diameter tolerance is a key point of failure for any filament, as Will explains: “We knew that if our filament had poor diameter tolerance (getting wider, smaller, changing shape, etc.) then it would be difficult for users to print with it. help. So we've built a system that monitors the ovality and diameter of the filament about a thousand times per second. Tons and tons of samples are required, then we can adjust the speed of extrusion and material drawing. We can change it in the process. Many plastic manufacturers produce a low-quality batch and have to throw it away, so our ability to correct during the printing process is really useful.
We are seeing an amazing expansion of our product. Since our U-HIPS is a highly durable material that does not get dirty (after processing), printing on it is easy and does not require additional surface treatment.
It is easy to print from and does not require surface treatment. It can even be used on a system that is not closed. There are many things about our U-HIPS product that make it truly unique, allowing manufacturers of any experience level to participate in the circular economy at any level right now. We have a client, Leviathan 3D Printing on the East Coast, who reported receiving our product from Matterhackers and is delighted with the print results. They used it to create student projects for accessibility reasons. The students designed things to be used by other people with limited hand capabilities. It is the epitome of recyclability and the circular economy and it is great to see our product being used in this way.”
CLP has built a solid fan base that enjoys using its products, and manufacturers have found some really innovative uses for it. The company recently featured on their blog some fantastic handheld body surf planes made by an Orange County High School teacher.
He surfaced and painted them, and they look like a finished product.
“We had a lot of people in the early days who thought it wouldn't get accepted because it was too hard stuff to use,” explains Will. “As our product has grown and improved in quality, we have seen many people adopt it and dedicate themselves to making it work on their systems. We have people prototyping in their labs, students using it for various projects, and even a few professional prototyping agencies using it to create all sorts of cool things."0024 .
We have made great strides in raising funds this year and continue to gain momentum in yarn production as we continue to expand our rapid production capabilities and explore new materials in this area. Expanding our material portfolio and expanding our workforce in Long Beach, California are some of the goals we continue to work towards. Over the next 5 years, we hope to expand and open three new facilities that can process 2,000 to 10,000 pounds of plastic per hour and really start recycling plastic so we can get more recycled material into the hands of more manufacturers and manufacturers.
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