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PLA Print Degraded Over Time
(discuss.tchncs.de)
This was an ornament I printed roughly 6 years ago. Being a Christmas ornament it spent most of those 6 years stored in my roof space.
Being in Australia this would have been subject to average temperatures of 30 to 35 degrees c but also peaks across summer approaching 70 degrees c. Also in high humidity.
The PLA crumbles into tiny pieces at the softest touch.
I thought it was interesting that PLA would start to break down in these conditions.
PLA is considered non-toxic by itself already.
And while the biodegradability/compostability is indeed rather circumstantial, the much more important part is that it's a renewable, plant based plastic. Currently the most useful way to get rid of it is to incinerate it for energy, which ends up being rather carbon neutral as it just releases the carbon the plant material used for growing itself.