Its made by fermentation with lactobacillus, which is an OTC probiotic for... lots of things. Converting lactic acid to PLA takes a while but is not hard. Pretty doable.
I never expected the degradation to be asymmetric but your explanation about percolation of stuff between layer voids makes perfect sense. Fascinating stuff!!!
@@CNCKitchen It would be interesting if we can find slicer settings that will give our prints thinner walls and a more spongy texture. Maybe with that we can optimize our prints for faster decomposition.
You also have to take into account the randomness of nature. Bacteria and fungus isn't evenly distributed within a compost pile. Yes it is everywhere, but you're bound to find hot spots with more organisms than usual. Even with all the parts so close to each other, they are still exposed to different concentrations in the pile.
I googled some time ago how long PLA needs to degrade in a compost environment.... If I remember correctly it will need up to 8 months in a perfect condition temperature ( I think it was 40-45 degree Celsius) to start degrading... So my suggestion, do the experiment over the summer and give it more time. I think if you would have waited one year, the result would be much more showing... The Temperature from August to now is maybe to low here in Germany
The problem with biodegradable plastic(apart from the part that its falsely marketed as Biocompostable) is that if they were reasonably "green", the material would have a way shorter shelf life, whuch rubs consumers and production facilities in the wrong direction. Also it would fare way worse from ambiental degradation, meaning less quality overall. The main problem is that we, as consumers, are easily misled by marketing, believing that both Quality and Green are easily achievable. Because of that we buy Industrial Grade plastics and get rid of as if they would dissapearninto thin air. As conscient 21th century adults, we must decide either if we are into the negatives of REALLY environmentally friendly plastics, or if we decide that plastic pollution (and the degradation of the planet we live in and NEED to be healthtly) is worth it. Or look at other alternative materials that are not as moldable, variated and eyecandily as plastics overall.
@@bruceluiz how many objects are there still around made of wood, cloth, leather, papyrus, etc. that are hundreds of years old? Some have been valuable enough to preserve, some have been kept but show signs of aging, some like ancient scrolls are fragile but can still serve their purpose. However, for most of these objects they were not valuable enough to maintain or keep. Have they not for the most part returned to the soil or are in the process? The point is that the issue is not a simple trade off between biodegradability and usefulness or durability. That is a reasonable simplification yet misleading. Does it function with durability within tolerance, with maintenance within tolerance within the the environments it will be used? Does it biodegrade within a practical timeframe under conditions which are practical to create? “Practical” and “tolerance” are defined by the intersection of the demands of consumers and supply of material science.
Thank you so much for taking this issue up. A lot of folks throw away PLA thinking it's biodegradable and won't harm the environment and magically disappear. Manufacturers don't help with their 'its magically biodegradable' marketing and it seriously makes things worse.....need more videos about this to educate people on proper disposal procedures even for PLA
proper disposal of any modern polymer is compacting it and storing it under the ground. that's it. no biodegradation, no burning, (in fact in terms of carbon footprint biodegradation is the same as combustion but slower. )
Apparently you need above 60c for PLA to degrade, well above most home composts, if you have a large compost pit that is hot, you might be fine. Edit: finished the vid, you probably won’t be fine
@@stopitnowlol6697 Enzymes are key when breaking down starch and cellulose for fermentation. I wonder if simply adding the right enzymes to PLA that are activated with moisture would make it degrade faster. Also, compost bins are highly acidic and PLA is acid based. PLA might break down more quickly in an alkaline environment. Just throw in some lime?
I do composting at home. I can confirm that air rating compost significantly increases the process. All thou I do not use a drum composter I suspect it will work much better than the method you use today.
I’m adding some stuff Heat is a result of composting it is not a target. If you increase the temp beyond 70 degrees it will kill the bacteria and worms that do the composting. A drum composter is great for air rating the compost pile but you’ll need to watch the temperature closely. As soon as you hit 70 c you need to add water and rotate the pile. Which could be a great diy project! Another disadvantage of the the drum is that you manually need to add worms as they will not just magically appear in the drum. Another disadvantage of a drum composter is its size, which is limited. I’m 100% sure that a drum composter will work great as long as you take the considerations above into account.
I'll take that into consideration! I think the key point is that you first need the high temperatures to hydrolyze the polymer chains and then the bacteria/fungi etc can do their work.
Don't knock your compost! The decomposers are healthy, the microbiome is healthy, the soil is gorgeous and the plants are happy! I think that's what's important.
There are so many compost snobs online. The ONLY advantage to doing all the fancy stuff is you'll get compost faster. That's it. If you don't mind it being slower then the rest is fine. The only crime to humanity is throwing in random plastic, chemicals or meat. Otherwise just throw organic matter onto the pile and you're golden
@@Stettafire i love throwing in chemicals and meat! All joking aside, best compost I had was more of a pit than a pile, never could find the time to turn it or anything. And good lord did things grow out of it. We've since moved house, but you can still see the spot where the compost was bc the grass is always a little taller, and the weeds love that little spot
The way you're getting more comfortable with the camera (gracefully accompanied by your improving english) is such a nice thing to keep watching! I'm grateful for subscribing and not feeling guilty for being just too lazy to bother hitting that red button like most, haha Cheers from a brazilian fan!
Working in the polymers industry (producer of initiators) I have quite a bit of exposure to this type of issues and indeed there simply is no easily biodegradable (aka in a simple home composter) polymer in existence. Even the polymerized starch bags used to collect the compostable waste compost quite poorly in a home composter and they are so weak the material would be totally useless for 3D printing I appreciate that you are helping create awareness that this is not a problem the world can easily solve with some quick switch to a biodegradable polymer. Next to being biodegradable the problem is way bigger. If we switch to too much bio based raw materials people will die from hunger as we can only use our available fertile land once...
Most of us researchers in the green and bio-based chemistry and materials space are very aware that we should be focusing on the use of second generation (i.e. non-competitive with food) biomass.
@@danzo5521 My understanding is this: There are people suffering from malnourishment; to better help these people, we'd like to produce more food so that it's more available and at lower prices. At the same time, producing products form non-renewable sources may not be sustainable; it would help if renewable resources like plants could be used as raw materials instead. The problem is that using farm land to make biomaterials might make food availability worse or lead to deforestation to make more room for farmland. What Chemistry Krang is saying is that the biomaterials industry knows about this; they focus on finding sources of biomass that do not interfere with food production. One way to do this is to use the waste products from normal farming for the biomaterials (things like the parts of plants grown for food that aren't eaten, like corn husks).
Absolutely the green/bio based polymer industry is doing it's utmost to find solutions! And where a few years ago any bio product also directly competing with food was proposed as a potential solution awareness has clearly shifted to using non food competing feedstocks, be it waste from production or otherwise.
@@danzo5521 First generation biomass is things like sugar cane, palm oil, corn starch etc - using actual edible crops for fuels or chemicals production. The issue being that this increases demand for these and pushes up the price of food and demand for prime arable land (adding to deforestation etc) Second generation biomass is things like agricultural waste (wheat straw, pea vines etc), food processing waste (potato peel, orange peel etc), or crops that can be grown on marginal or non-arable land that can't be used for food (miscanthus being the classic example). 3rd Gen is things like algae which can be cultured in tanks or pools and aren't grown on land at all... this is kinda a separate thing really, and there are problems with viability since the separation of useful fuel or chemicals from this very watery soup of algae is a problem, as are the nutrient requirements. So far it's struggled to be viable.
Thanks for highlighting this important topic. I recently bought my first 3D printer and for now I’m collecting all wasted pla in the box. Planning to melt it in the oven and make pla sheets which I can turn into planters using a heat gun or just pile them in my garage.
For your new composter. Perhaps building a new chicken coop where the composter is above the chicken compartment. This way the chickens benefit from the heat of the compost and the compost benefits from the heat of the chickens... lol... maybe put the composter with a mesh wrapped around it and some paddles so the chickens will be encouraged to jump up on it and rotate it. The chickens will get some exercise... maybe shake out worm... and the composter gets turned. Chicken powered composting is the future! Put those freeloaders to work!
i know it'd be a logistical challenge but it really would be nice to be able to just remelt PLA back to filament form in bulk I'm not sure how much you would need to print/ how much the area around you print to make a proper extruder machine worth its investment but ngl for 99% of usecase where you don't need high performance plastic, having a local brand PLA filament from your local recycler sounds somewhat enticing
A buddy and I bought necessary machines to make your own recycled filament. He got the shredder to break prints into small pieces, and I got the filament making part. We've spent about 800€ for the machinery and you absolutely need virgin PLA pellets for somewhat decently extruded filament, so it'll be a long while to pay for itself. This also wasn't our direct goal, we more or less want to minimize waste, the material is still fine after one run through the printer, so why throw ot away when you can just reuse it? It also helps with the whole spool mess, we just reuse them, put new filament on them and print them empty again. Well, and the biggest factor in this for me: It's fun to tinker around until everything works fine.
The real problem, with all large-scale/municipal recycling, but especially recycling 3d print waste, is ensuring that the feedstock is *actually* all PLA. There's always going to be some dipshit that tosses his ABS supports in there with his PLA, and that ruins the whole batch. Like, an individual, or a company could do it--with their own waste--but someone trying to collect the waste of others has an almost-impossible task of guaranteeing homogeneity.
@@aronseptianto8142 That's why they have the little stamped recycling numbers on them. Tells you what kind of plastic it is. ...but in reality, they don't actually recycle most plastic; it just gets dumped/incinerated.
This is exactly why I'm reading into research of depolymerization of pla. According to some articles I've read you just need to add some zinc acetate (which is just zinc and vinegar, sorta) and distill the pla. You'll get pure monopolymer. I forget thy exact details and don't have a link handy... Unfortunately the process is not economically viable compared to making new pla.
Seems like something we could really use some government subsidies for. Subsidized PLA recycling would make the economic viability an issue to worry about later
I have one of those rotating composting barrels and tried to compost some PLA prints that I had painstakingly cut up into small bits...yeah that was a mistake. I waited 3 years and the plastic looked untouched other than a light fading of color. I ended up having to bag the whole batch of compost and send it to the landfill because it was contaminated with all the PLA.
Maybe you can try a wood PLA decomposed with grain spawn with oyster mushroom mycelium. it might decompose it much faster than regular compost. and you might even get lucky getting mushrooms out of it. this would be interesting experiment.
I make a couple of tons of compost a year at home, i used compost bays made of pallets and and see pretty high temps up to 70c but thats only for a phew days, it quickly cools to 40-50c ish and is normally round a mouth or so before slowly cooling down. My suspicion is that home compost heaps simply dont get hot enough for long enough to have much of an effect.
You need to grind the prints up to break the polymer chains so that there are more chain-ends for enzymes to interact with. I think it is reasonable and realistic for home-composters to "mulch" prints before composting.
@@respiii Too bad someone hasn't invented a way to look at things at the "micro" level. Some kind of "scope". 😀 Seriously, though, you are correct that unless Stefan is willing to determine whether the filament is being digested or just breaking into tiny particles, there isn't any point.
You are confusing biodegradation and depolarization. Grinding PLA does nothing but turns it into microplastics. Please don't ever do that or recommend others. Yes, it will be so small you can't see it. But it will simply build up in the soil and eventually in the food chain. PLA requires special anaerobic industrial composters because it needs to be depolarized through elevated temperatures, high humidity and lack of oxygen. And it then breaks down into inert material. Biodegradation or composting, requires the element to be re-absorbed into soil and used as food for organisms. Only PHA, PCL bio-polymers does that. No other bio-polymer of combination work (including blending PLA-PHA) Yes PLA is Bio-Base, but no. It is not compostable. If you want to learn more, I recommend reading Prof J. Green from California State University (Chico, CA). book. www.amazon.com/Sustainable-Plastics-Environmental-Assessments-Biodegradable/dp/1118104811 Or check out these links for bio-degradable filaments for FDM 3D printing. www.gopha.org/ beyondplastic.com/collections/all colorfabb.com/filaments/materials/pha-filaments
@@fredpinczuk7352 Thanks for the links. I've learned a bit more about filament compostability in the months since Stefan posted this video. In fact, I am printing something in (regen) PHA right this moment. The "natural" version has a paper-like translucency and texture, and the wood-fill version gives very nice results. I may set up some composting experiments once it stops being frozen outside.
First off, lets recognize that when defined by what happens in 12 or 26 weeks, or 100 days, biodegradability is not about whether or not it causes a huge environmental impact long term. What du you think happens with wood in the same time, it depends on the type of wood, but some types shouldn't be very far from those results, possibly even within that range, in part of initial strength lost. Degradation is likely to accelerate, microorganisms that can make good use of the material will benefit, and increase in numbers, and given enough time, even become better at using it. Also, micro plastics, why, oh why would plastics stop degrading at some arbitrary particle size? You said it, degradation happens on the surface, the smaller the particle size the faster degradation should happen, all else equal. With blends I get it, part of it can degrade a lot faster and leave particles that takes longer time to degrade because it's another material than the first part, but when there's one type av material, nope.
Industrial composting optimizes the process by shredding everything that goes in. Then it carefully controls inputs of water, air, nitrogen and carbon compounds while regulating the temperature and keeping it 'homogenous' (stirred up so everything is evenly distributed). To even come close with the rotating composters, you'd have to shred the plastics, monitor the temperature and rotate it automatically, and monitor pH to determine whether it needs more nitrogen, etc. That sounds even more tedious than performing 3d printed strength tests. 🙂
Understanding how PLA degrades is important. It hydrolyzes in both acidic snd basic environments as well as high temperature if sufficient water is present. The end product is lactic acid. Further degradation happens at the surface. Meaning microplastics with their much larger surface area are more rapidly hydrolyzed. In industrrial composting one of the important steps is breaking down the material mechanically. This increases surface area and hence increases hydrolysis.
I'm starting to see a bit of a pattern in experiences with those Extrudr filaments... I used to have a roll of NX2 PLA in matte black, and it looked gorgeous - but the layer adhesion was very poor. I had to print a bunch of parts over because some slightly thin sections just snapped clean off. Looking around on the internet, it looks like it's not just me.
I'm a researcher who works on sustainable and bio-based plastics. A couple of comments: - For most applications the intended end of life ought to be recycling. Biodegradation should be viewed as a failure to recycle, not a success most of the time - it just means you have to make more polymer (incurring a significant footprint) to replace that which has degraded. The problem is that small volume plastics like PLA don't currently make sense for recyclers to tool up for. Maybe we should all be printing PET instead! - For many applications where biodegradability is an advantage, this is to deal with littering (things like takeaway food packaging)... and biodegradation in the ocean or just outdoors remains a real challenge. Paper and card isn't a perfect option either as it has a substantial environmental impact compared to something like expanded polystyrene (which is horrible and petrochemical... but actually efficient to make despite all that). - Compostable materials are really only useful where you expect the material to end up in a composter! This isn't a likely end of life scenario for anything other than food waste bags used for convenience where local authorities collect compostable waste (as they do where I live)... and these are film products with a very large surface area to volume ratio, which works in their favour. Now if only somebody would give me a nice big research grant for my "failsafe" degradable plastics idea I could get to work on solving these problems...
I agree on all your points. But that does leave us with the issue most if not all home printers have: what can we do with our failed prints and print supports. I currently have 2 very small tubs to collect this per type of material, but I currently have no means to recycle it as new filament or dump it in the compost (because it does not work). I do not want to throw it in the trash yet....😵
@@ericvenneker I definitely think there's a massive gap in the market for a reasonably accessible benchtop failed print recycling setup. I don't currently have a 3D printer myself - I've just moved house and building my home workshop is a year or so away - but it's definitely something I intend to have a look at for myself. Especially since right now I've got students working with things like small scale granulators and extruders so I've got some experience with this sort of thing in a lab setting.
Perhaps you could try using a 12v immersion heater element in the core of the compost to keep the temperature at a stable 60C which will also improve the compost. You could power that with a solar cell or battery. See if the 3D printed parts break down with exposure to 60C for different time periods and see if they truly break down with industrial processes.
Not a good idea. Heat is not the target it a result. Heating a compost pile beyond 70 degrees will kill off the bacteria and worms which you need to….well…compost.
@@stephandelaat to clarify, you do mean 70°F right? First time I read your comment it looked strange to say that 60C is above the max 70 degrees recommended in compost 😁 Maybe John meant 60°F as well, 60°C seem too extreme for compost even to a compostnoob as myself 😊
@@bennylloyd-willner9667 I ment Celsius. But warming up a compost pile is not the way to compost. Like i said..temperature is the result of composting…It is not the the target of composting. Actively warming a compost pile is not required for composting. It would also be 100% against the reason why people compost. You do it to save the environment.
@@stephandelaat OK, I don't really get your comment then, "bad idea to have 60°C since over 70°C is bad". I mean, 60 is actually pretty far from being over 70? I'm not natively speaking English so I may just get something wrong, but it looks funny to me.
@@stephandelaat I do get that good compost generates the heat by itself, but to help it along a bit (not 60-70°C) can't be all bad. Like in very cold climates where the insulation can't keep the cold out and the reaction is slowing down to almost a halt ?
I'd love to see the same method applied to PHA/PHB only filaments like colorFabb's allPHA, they claim it is soil and marine compostable, but it's so hard to find any real and simple examples. However, it did seem like the PHB (closely related to PHA I think) was maybe the main reason the nonoileum changed so much?
If the compost pile is too insulated then the heat will slow down the rate of decomposition, it's a feedback system where heat is produced until the heat slows it down. Maybe a less insulated pile may have more activity and lead to higher rate of material breakdown. Also, if the rate of decomposition is based on surface area, shouldn't mean microplastics will decompose quite quickly?
I watched this on mute at a friends house in the living room while we bumped music and still understood it perfectly at 2am. Love to see it and cheers from the other side of the globe 🤙
Interesting! There are species of marine bacteria in several families, including Marinobacter, Oceanospiralles, Pseudomonas, and Alkanivorax, that can eat compounds from petroleum as part of their diet. Maybe they would be beneficial in composting these samples? Edit: that metal headbanging was on point!
even with a perfectly home biodegradable printing plastic, I would still be hesitant growing food using that compost what with the additives and plasticizers that would likely be added since I would imagine that sort of plastic would have awful printing and/or strength properties that would be undesirable and deter people from their use otherwise.
Pestalotiopsis Microspora; spore syranges can be purchased online. It's the mushroom that can breakdown plastics. I don't know how well it would work, but it sounds like a fun experiment.
I wonder if the plastic would break down more in a biodigester since it would be underwater? Either way, biodegradable plastics still have a long way to go. In the short term it might be more practical to slip small amounts of pla into the fuel for a hight temp stove. If it's hot enough, the plastic should break down and burn cleanly.
I think the tumbling would help with plastic-breakdown, as it will keep moving bio-material close to the plastic, (instead of a pocket of degrading plastic in direct contact.)
I would really love to see the CNC Kitchen treatment given to PHA filaments. Of course the composting would be interesting, but more so the best way to print with it. Haven't used it yet myself and it sounds appealing, but sounds like a bit of a pain to print with. Thanks!
Really Nice test!! Tip for Aeration Compost: add a vertical hole tube in the center of the compost pile, like a chimney, to air pass and dont be anaerobic bottom down.
Our extension office explained that pla filament is biodegradable, but ONLY in an industrial compost setting where the average temperature stays much higher than a garden compost bin.
I have a rotating composter and my only advice is very carefully scrutinize the method used to keep the door closed. Mine will open when I spin it!!! So I do not which defeats the whole purpose. I will have to derive a solution for this problem - perhaps a barrel latch - haven't tried it yet. good lick and happy comoposting!
Hi Stefan, "bio-degradable" heißt deshalb nicht "kompostierbar" und darf auf gar keinen Fall in die braune Tonne. Es gibt nur ganz wenige Firmen, die PLA sauber auflösen/recyceln können unter bestimmten Umgebungsbedingungen. Wenn man mit den Recyclingfirmen redet. wäre ihnen ABS mit Typenstempel viel lieber, denn das können sie sauber wiederverwenden.
One other consideration, which I don't think I heard you mention, is that a lot of the colorants and additives (strengtheners, softeners, etc) can also affect both the ability to biodegrade and the toxicity if they do. I've certainly had some PLA filaments (black and purple being the worst) that smell almost as bad as ABS. Because of this, I stopped tossing my failed prints into the compost (Seattle's one of those few places with commercial composting that can handle plastics).
thanks so much stephan. this is actually the first review of the nonoilen i have ever seen. what i would like is for you to put back the nonoilen samples into your existing composter for even longer. and the recheck them full 12 months. perhaps then also 24 months. this would be very valuable and a great help. btw it was also nice to see the strength of the nonoiled showing as being weaker. to be aware of that. however (and this goes for both the greentech and the nonoilen).... to give a strongest result you should be trying the method of successive temperature ramping partial annealing. which you do on the bed immediately after printing. this requires a heated chamber. over a course of several hours (perhaps up to 12h? idk). you have to ramp the temperature 3-5 times. and each time only partially anneal the part. for example your 1st ramp might be 60c for 1-3 hours. then a cool down period at 30c to 45c for 30mins to 1h. then the 2nd ramp up to 70c or 75c. then back down again. then the 3rd ramp up to 85 to 90c. the specific ramping profiles really depends mostly on the capabilities of your heated chamber. and how quickly it can change temperature. and ultimately how high it can go maximally. however for htpla clearly the end goal is an annealed product with an hdt anywhere between 90c and 120c. it is important to do the ramping in this way to created only a partial annealing each time. so that the dimensions of the print are somewhat maintained and that the annealed parts within the print are being held in place by the unannealed elements. therefore the successive ramping builds each time on that which was already part annealed by the previous cycle. and so you can cycle higher. hopefully that makes some sense. to give an insight into this technique. anyhow the point here is that the greentech pro carbon is supposed to result in the strongest htpla through this method. however what if you also succesive partial annealed the nonoilen filament in the same exact way? would this extra post processing step then help to close the gap in mechanical tensile strength and make the nonoilen not be falling behind so far as with the unannealed versions of the same prints? or conversely would the significant PHB component of the nonoilen react poorly to the magical annealing process, and become a failure when compared to other regular leading htplas? BTW for a control reference a 3rd HTPLA that also is worth comparing (as a control) is the esun pla+. which also people are using for partial annealing. with the same above technique. good luck stephan, i really hope you can do a video in future to cover this topic. i know you already covered annealing but those other annealing methods (for example in sand etc) they just arent the same thing. they might work well for annealing other types of material. but maybe not pla? so i think your time is not wasted here, also given that other in the 3d printing community are already doing this newer annealing method and with some comparative degree of success. and with less warping etc. at least that is the promise, and the expectation. to make this method worthwhile. but also for the convenience. because if you already printed in a chamber the idea is you can just run an extra program with the ramps in it. and leave your print there overnight. and without touching it or opening the door. so that should also be a lot more convenient. more practical. especially if have multiple printers
The colour change fascinates me. What might be the reason for it? Is it merely due to temperature and pressure or is do the pigments leach into the environment or are the bleached eg by being oxidized enzymatically or otherwise?
Maybe it's a good Idea to add fast biodegradable filler Material, just like the coffee. The stuff degrades fast and then offers more surface area to the slower degrading PLA.
PLA microplastic is not inflammatory as others (PP, PE). Because PLA biodegrades inside the body. (It is even used as a medication dispenser, because it breaks down harmlessly) Some pigments may be inflammatory and cause problem though, so in order to make PLA microplastics non harmful, the selection of the pigments is quite important.
I am glad more and more people are talking about this. What I am wondering, however is if still it would biodegrade faster than conventional plastics (not to mention it is still a reduction in pollution in the manufacturing process). Conventional plastics will take hundreds of years to degrade. Yes, it is great to be aware that PLA is not a miracle material and will not degrade in a few months of being left in your garden, but if it takes several years to degrade, it is still better than conventional plastics.
Instead of going bigger, why not go smaller and more controlled? Build a heated and controlled environment to do the composting on a small scale. You want to have a stable temperature of about 35 °C degrees on the outside and 65 degrees °C on the inside of your compost pile, and good ventilation while maintaining a relative humidity above 60%.
Maybe 2 years ago, I taught you will eventually run out of testing idea. Boy I was wrong!!! I'm a long time subscriber and you always raise the bar with nice quantitative experimentation. Sometime, I skip some part of the video (to save time). But I always come back because I feel something is missing! This mean you have a well balanced and high value delivery. Thumbs up from Montréal, as always!
in sweden we burn a lot of trash using very good filtering tech to prevent air polution. i think that works great with bio plastics since then at least we are not wasting petrolium based plastics that could make more senser to recycle...
My grandpa had a horizontal drum compost system many years ago. He had a heck of a green thumb that turned his acre lot into what looked like a rain forest. For his compost system, he would add raw stock, along with some already composted material as a starter culture. He would then add a pound of sugar (his barrel was 200 gallons) and wet it down. Then, he would spin the barrel about a dozen times and check the moisture, adding more water as needed. Then, once a day he would spin the barrel a few times. Every third day, he would add more raw stock. After a couple weeks, he could remove usable compost, but never more than half of what was available. Every time he removed compost, he would top it off with raw stock and repeat the water, sugar, and turning. That system was a beast at making compost. He would easily get 20-30 cubic yards of compost out of it every year.
How hot was your compost bin over that year? I am considering trying this, I am in Florida, and am sure I can get fairly high compost temps, with a proper bin, rotation etc. Temps are supposed to be over 60-70c in order to compot PLA. Which is like 120f+ which is really high. I might be able to obtain this with a black compost bin in the florida sun, but can't say for sure.
I agree this is definitely not industrial compost conditions, but while it's probably typical, it's not a proper hot compost. A hot compost will consistently reach 60c for many days, but it requires the right balance of materials and turning every day or two.
What about a test piece that's a screen? Like a net. That way instead of it just being thin there's also holes in it as well. And rather than testing strength you could check the weight.
A question I have is if burning pla is carbon neutral like burning wood and how toxic its fumes are. Maybe I could use old prints as fuel for home heating if it's safe and carbon neutral.
@@CNCKitchen if you look into "Bokashi Bran" it will be the pre-innoculated grain, should just be mix and go! If you have trouble sourcing in Germany, DM me, there are many reputable vendors I know in the US and we could get it done, for science!
Would love to see if PLA is digestible if small enough In a simulated animal gut. Just to see if microplasic build up of PLA microplastics Is a problem. We sand PLA and other plastics all the time but where does that plastic go. Ends up in the water and in animals(is my guess). Does PLA digest when in an animal when it is ground that fine.
Superb work, well done and thanks for making us aware of the realities. I wonder, with the volume of plastics around, if there wouldn’t be a good way to compost these “biodegradable” materials specifically. I’ve seen the industrial composting sites, large conical piles of composting materials, their temperature gets monitored regularly and as soon as they start getting below about 65C (IIRC) they get turned over with a front end loader to get the outside on the inside and restart the composting. No pathogens survive the temperatures. Maybe plastics can be processed by special bacteria in a similar way, hopefully to meet some of those standards you mentioned.
Although ecenomically speaking is cheaper for the end user to just get rid of the unwanted prints in the compost bin, where 100 days are not enough, technically you need to keep them in there for good measure 2 or 3 years, but is cheap and doable, my take is that in such case you need to buy more filament to make your prints, and that has an impact on mother nature either way, oraginc sourced raw materials or inorganic sourced ones. So lowering such impact is more important than cheap composting the undesired results/supports, etc. Hence re extruding your unwanted prints into filament, even if the add on of same material pellets, makes much more sense to me (not to the pellets industry, if you make yourself a reused filament mix of 60% printed matrials and 40% new pelets, they are actually losing to you 60% of their sales) I know that requires some expensive machineries to make sense, this is why I se it more like a local cooperative of makers that run such a small shop based on voluteering a this stage. (I calculate in my mind some 30.000 euro and a lot of volunteer hours) I have no clue where Stefan lives, but I bet that if he gives a shout out on a 30Km radius he will find a few hundred interested folks, and if only 50 of them join seriously they can make it happen in 2 months, up and running. The others might choose to contribute be it by bringning in their already sorted by material and eventually colour unwanted prints, maybe give in 10 Kg against a one Kg newly extruder reel of 60/40 material, or by purchasing from the cooperation point (instead of Bezos point) to help them make sense and grow roots. I dare you Stefan, I double dare you. And I always am ready to help with advice, links and other indications as much as I can. I bet if Thomas Sanladerer does it too (hoping he leives away from you so he creates another cluster) and if we can convince a few more influencers around the globe, maybe this quiet movement can take place in a year or two everywhere. And once you have the setup and the volunteers, you can also talk to the local councils to direct to your place all the plastics dropped by the public in their waste recycling centers (and get paid by ton for receiving it), and sort it on categories, colors, you can make them filament too, instead of having them either burned somewhere or landfilled somewhere lese. Let's take Munchen for instance, how many people own 3D printers there (irrelevant, most of them do not use them at all or too little) maybe hundreds of thousands. How many of them actually use them enough to be bothered by they unwanted prints? Maybe thousands. I think it can work fine there, or Bonn, Berlin, Hanover, Frankfut, Hamburg, etc. And once the movement is generated, smaller density areas might find their way too with your expert help (yep, being one or two years ahead of them will make you loo "experts")... lol.
@@nesnduma Good, let's get things rolling than. Wee ned to prepare a short page with the requirements, strategy and resources, than you can spread the word based on that, and see how many folks would join you. Than you can start it up once things have fallen in place.
for the next test you should try shredding some of the samples. I feeling like it is much more difficult for the composter to compost the samples when they are completely intact. it's also much more of a realistic test if the samples are shredded. almost everything that gets put in a compost bin gets somewhat torn apart. and I'm also assuming a industrial compost factory would shread everything as well. the only problem i can see is being able to find the shredded pieces by the end of the test. perhaps if you get more than one of the new compost bins you can dedicate one of them to just the shredded plastic, or you can put them in some sort of mesh bags that aren't made of a biodegradable material. love your videos!
When I was stationed in Korea, I saw a fungus that turned canvas tents (cellulose) into simple sugars! Point being, biological action can be very effective for breaking down polymer materials, once one finds a 'bug' that can eat them! So far, no natural biota has come along that noms on PLA directly.
There are plenty of papers exploring that and the lack of high concentrations of bacteria and other "life" makes these biodegradation processes so slow.
Interesting test and results! PLA and related may not be the cure-all bullet for plastic waste, but at least it doesn't require fossil resources and can be grown right here in our yards, instead of being shipped across half the globe first. (Oil tankers probably don't use solar as fuel. I'd imagine they rather use refinery left-overs...)
Thank you for this interesting long test. It would be interesting to see if the degradation process can be trigged/accelerated/catalysed with something pretty easy and natural like, soaking the PLA parts in a vinager+baking soda solution (or any other organic mix of this type) for hrs/days, at least prior to putting them in the composter. Or so. 🤷🏽♂️
