108
Neat, I can make some nice plastic cutlery with that filament!
I've believed for a long time that a viable way to do this consistently is the game changing technology that will change the world.
A system where every home has a 3D printer, and beside it, an economical, easy to use recycler that turns your plastic bottles, etc.. into working filament.
Dishes, cutlery, cooking utensils, you name it, could just be recycled in an environmental loop, or used as raw material for a coat hanger or a curtain hook or any other thing made of plastic in our homes.
It would change the world more than 3D printing already has.
I'm not an expert, but plastic degrades. It still needs new plastic in the mix to keep its material properties. Not all plastic is suitable for everything either, and not all can be recycled.
I do agree that it would be awesome, but don't think it's feasible in the near future.
It might become feasible for certain types of plastic. #1 and #2 (PET and HDPE) are easily cleaned and remelted.
ABS can offgas butadiene (the B) and is pretty cancerous.
PVC can lose the Chloride and that’s deadly too.
The polystyrene is too bulky to make sense recycling in low quantities without big compaction equipment. But apparently can be profitable if you can offload the compaction and collection costs to sellers or consumers. Otherwise recyclers don’t touch it.
We really just need to outlaw using most difficult to handle plastics for one time use.
You can at melt polystyrene down with acetone for compact storage and repurpose it as glue. It's an option at least.
Mmmmm VOCs
Cooking on a gas stove produces so many VOCs that any plastic melting will cry in the corner. Yet many people still cook on a gas.
Yes, and he demostrates that in the video.
Steffan added a small percentage of virgin plastic to his re-grind material and the result was stronger than just the original plastic material before grinding/extruding.
Pretty neat idea, hopefully the equipment needed keeps getting smaller and cheaper.
Right now it doesn't make a lot of sense except for larger, or shared maker type spaces.
Step 1: Turn plastic cutlery into filament
Step 2: 3d print plastic cutlery
Step 3: ????
Step 4: Profit
What microplastics?
I'm still pissed he threw away that marinara. Could have used the cutlery to eat some noodles and then do his project. Talking about waste and then that.
Schäm dich, Brudi.
Also buying cutlery instead of sourcing used cutlery, shipping the recycled filament to someone and burning more carbon in the process on top of the wasted marinara sauce.
I like Stefan and his channel, but those were the wrong actions if you're going to talk about waste and environmentalism.
For any experiment to give you meaningful results you need to control some of the variables.
Agreed, however that's missing the point of my criticism. He framed the whole video around waste, then proceeded to create more waste.
And? You can't make a meaningful experiment without controlling your inputs.
It is neat to see that materials in the same polymer family can have such a large difference in properties.
Plastic cutlery is disappearing in most countries - it's all wood or cardboard now. I suppose someone could make a business of collecting used cutlery where it's still in use and recycle it (not necessarily into filament), but I wonder if it would be economically viable.
this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2023
108 points (100.0% liked)
3DPrinting
15629 readers
128 users here now
3DPrinting is a place where makers of all skill levels and walks of life can learn about and discuss 3D printing and development of 3D printed parts and devices.
The r/functionalprint community is now located at: !functionalprint@kbin.social or !functionalprint@fedia.io
There are CAD communities available at: !cad@lemmy.world or !freecad@lemmy.ml
Rules
-
No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. Code of Conduct.
-
Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
-
No porn (NSFW prints are acceptable but must be marked NSFW)
-
No Ads / Spamming / Guerrilla Marketing
-
Do not create links to reddit
-
If you see an issue please flag it
-
No guns
-
No injury gore posts
If you need an easy way to host pictures, https://catbox.moe may be an option. Be ethical about what you post and donate if you are able or use this a lot. It is just an individual hosting content, not a company. The image embedding syntax for Lemmy is 
Moderation policy: Light, mostly invisible
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS