Glycerol is the plasticizer you're looking for. Its biodegradable and can be used as a plasticizer for cellulose acetate. It has the added benefit of increasing the temperature at which the cellulose decomposes.
That noted. you do have to be careful with anything that has glycerol in it coming into contact with nitric acid (unless polymerization binds it up in some way. been a while since I took chemistry), so there is that.
@@gendragongfly speak for yourself, i personally keep fuming nitric acid in every room of my house for ̶t̶o̶r̶t̶u̶r̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶. emergencies. for emergencies, yep
A very similar misconception that brands often exploit is the "eco-friendly" plant-based resin that is said to be "biodegradable," "safe for the environment," and worse, "non-toxic." Plant-based 3D printing resin with is good for the environment like PLA because part of the resin composition (~30%) is from a more environmentally friendly renewable material source (soybeans). However, a material made partially from a plant source is not automatically non-toxic and easy to recycle. In this case, uncured "eco-friendly" 3D printing resin is as dangerous to marine lifeforms as regular 3D resin because the most toxic part of resin is usually the initiator that makes UV curing possible. And the cured prints are much harder to break down than PLA prints. We still like to see more resins made with renewable material source, and we are developing one ourselves. Let's not pretend it is non-toxic/recyclable and be clear about that with the users.
A lot of respect hearing this from a major player in 3D printing resin manufacturing game like you guys. I agree, let's not greenwash what the hazards of the items are but instead be realistic, honest, and find and encourage proper ways of disposal.
UV is the main source of degradation in resins ( I worked in the carbon fibre lamination industry), obviously this is a trait that plastics manufacturers have worked hard to overcome and now it is working to find ways to undo this trait in certain circumstances.
Exactly. Plants have countless chemicals in them and the only reason they're biodegradable is because life evolved around them. Making parts of your chemicals out of plants doesn't make them non-toxic/biodegradable.
re: “people could eat that corn” the US gov actually subsidizes so much corn farming that literal tons of it are just tossed every growing season. But until it decides to stop doing that, actually using that corn for something seems neutral (also kinda fucked that people go hungry and corn gets thrown away but that’s another convo). PLA still bad for all those other reasons though.
Corn is far from the only food people could eat that gets thrown out. Every time I go to the store and see the meat sitting out because it’s past its sell by date I cry a little on the inside. Then I found a Video of a man from Cuba walking through one of our grocery stores and crying because he’s remembering how his mother loved apples, but could never find any, or about how he couldn’t bake a child a cake for their birthday because there were no eggs back in Cuba- standing in front of a mound of apples and a wall of eggs. I think the total food waste in the US is close to something like 50%. It’s either 50 or 30% I think. You can hear the numbers but it doesn’t really hit you hard until the grown man has them turn the camera off because he can’t take walking into a store (this wasn’t even one of the regular sized stores btw, much smaller than safeway or giant.)
@@serpentmaster1323 As sad as that story must be for that man you admitted the problem in your telling of it. He was from Cuba. A communist hellhole. So what exactly should we do? Should we just be shipping food to anyone anywhere in the world because they don't have any? Are you even aware that the whole free food thing ruins the ability for 3rd world countries to actually gain any amount of stable economy because they become solely reliant on the "free" food since their own people cannot make any business of selling food. How is the 3rd world farmer supposed to sell his food when he is competing with a developed country just giving it away. And then how about considering the fact that shit like that breeds corruption. But no you wouldn't care about the child who is sex trafficked to some UN official in exchange for preferential treatment in the distribution of that food. Well I suppose you probably shouldn't care since the sex trafficking is probably little boys having their asses fucked and that kind of behavior is seen as being okay by your kind The fact is your story is nothing more than emotion driven crap. I am not so easily swayed by an appeal based primarily or solely on emotion
@@senpaichicken9408 You are correct. I looked it up and there are 5 to 6 types of corn and not all of them are edible by humans. The corn they grow for fuel is not the same corn we find in the grocery store. But these are the half truths people use when they argue over a topic. Each side states only the facts, or comments, that support their opinion. So people who are against using plants for fuel will state that it takes food away from people, leaving out the fact that the plant chosen for fuel is not edible by people. That is why it is always best to do your own research. I read your comment, which sparked my curiosity, so I looked it up. Thanks for your comment. Now I am a smidgen smarter than I was yesterday. Have a great day.
I feel like "biodegradable, but under circumstances" is actually the ideal for these things, as it means you can have long lasting prints or ones that break down, maybe in the future there can be dedicated facilities? If 3D printing becomes more common I can definitely see there being dedicated recycle banks for it, only these ones actually being useful.
Then it should be marketed very carefully as that instead of just biodegradable. It's pretty clear that these companies used that term to drum up supporters for pla and it's still a pretty common misconception that pla is just biodegradable. We were lied to by omission
Just an fyi... my family owns farms in the USA. My family has a massive blueberry farm, and we grow for oceanspray drinks. My uncle also grows corn, wheat, soy, and other types of crops as well. Corn that is grown for production and not food... ISNT EDIBLE FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION. The corn that is grown for things like plastics, PLA, and ethanol... is a type of corn that is called "deer corn." Deers love it and eat it, but it's so bitter and harse on human stomachs... you will puke if you ate it. So, to put your mind at ease, the corn used to make things like PLA filament, can't be eaten by humans anyway. The deer corn crops are solely grown for production purposes ONLY and are planned out by farmers that grow these types of fuel producing crops... is all planned way out in advance. Many farmers that have land plots that stop growing good/excellent crops for human consumption... end up growing these "fuel producing" type of crops on their "bad plots" of land that doesn't have the proper soil to grow food anymore...because its extremely low maintenance, easy to grow, and the farmers can still make money when their crops aren't growing so well. have a good, my friend
@G0ldbl4e you can't eat, dear corn, my friend. It is beyond bitter and WILL make your stomach upset. My family plans 2 seasons at a time. Half the plots of farmland will go towards human edible crops. The other half is the real money maker. Companies will pay out each season for soy/dear corn to make ethanol with and other derivatives. Plus, fuel made from corn is clean fuel. It burns clean, burns incredible, and is much better for a lot of specific things that run on ethanol. I don't get why you would want to eat dear corn, tho? I am sorry if I am missing something, my friend. Anyways, have a good one.
yep, greenwashing. Same as the biodegradable bin liners, but arent unless in an industrial biodigester same as pla. Which isn't happening for general waste and why would you use bin liners for anything going into a digester. So much greenwashing going on and it so annoying, as the public just generally aren't aware. So great video. Be nice if protopasta or one of the other manufacturers got onboard and did some public devlopment.
Even PLA being "biodegradable" extends far past 3d printing. It seems about once a month a "new biodegradable plastic" makes the front page of reddit. Every time it's just someone making PLA out of a different base material.
I’ve been keeping up with this too. Just seeing “compostable” cutlery hanging on the shelf in grocery stores or getting it with my poké bowl makes me sick now. Even my university has it now to be all r/fellowkids. I keep literally all my PLA until I find either a use for it by recycling, if there is investment in ACTUALLY composting it or I die of old age. I don’t use it because it’s compostable, but I’m damn well going to make sure it doesn’t end up in the water if I can help it.
"Greenwashing" I've not heard that term before but I like it. Our local council have stopped collecting our food bins due to the "HGV driver shortage". We've been told to put our food in with our non-recyclable household waste. I asked a council employee about restarting food bin collections and he said: It doesn't matter. It all goes in the same incinerator anyway. So much for recycling!
One problem with biodegradable plastic is it can contaminate plastics being recycled. A very small amount of biodegradable plastic can ruin a large batch of recycled plastic. I don't think there are easy solutions but I sure hope governments can get past the stage of greenwashing. They needed to stop doing things just for the sound bite and come up with real solutions. By the way, there is still plenty of landfill area in most of the world. Having plastic end up in a landfill isn't necessarily bad. Having plastic end up in the ocean is bad.
this was maybe 8 years ago now, but the University of California, Merced waste management could not get "biodegradable" utensils to degrade in their systems and actually switched to metal washable flatware and recycleable plastics. It seemed that at least then, even in the industrial composting systems they could not get some of these compounds to break down.
There's also just that washable is the most eco-friendly thing around. If you don't have to make a new thing for every use, you save a TON of resources and energy.
Well, I'm a material engineer, I believe that the main issue with plastics is that it's almost impossible to differentiate between different types of plastics. If you add the numerous addetives to the mix it only gets worse. Hence recycled plastics are mainly from pure sources e.g. production waste material which has known composition.
No only that, the plastic molecular structure is a headache to break or "fix" Meaning that some plastic can't be recycled with current technology. Because we don't fix it on a molecular level. we just clean as much is practically possible then melt it and hope the molecular structure is good and contamination levels are low.
agreed. Even when I was at an art college, recycling paper was a huge thing, especially in the areas where you printed your art pieces for critiques. Though you couldn't officially recycle the paper that you printed because the inks were not soy based, and could not degrade.
Won't it help to mark any plastics with some in melted QR code or something to get a general idea of what, which plastics are and what it contains? So everyone who produce it, have to leaf an information about it on the packaging.
@@MrGTAmodsgerman Great idea, I would add to this by replacing the QR code with some publicly available universal standard codes for plastic types + additives that people were encouraged to look up and learn
When I bought my 3D printer, there were already strong indications that the biodegradability of PLA is only really theoretical. I also did stick one of my first failed PLA prints in a pot next to a plant that sits in the rain and weather all year round. It has been in there for +4 years now and still looks the same as day 1. For this reason, I never throw my failed prints or support material waste into the trash, I have kept all of it in jars nicely separated by filament, in the hopes of some day recycling it into new filament myself or handing it to someone else who can do something useful with it. I hope your quest to find a truly biodegradable filament leads somewhere, because I would feel a lot better printing silly gadgets and other disposable things in a material that won't keep making round trips in the food chain…
I am planning on making a machine to recycle old prints or plastics and turn them into filament. I just wish you could make filament from plastic number 5 bc they can’t be recycled in my area and I have a pile just building up in my room
@@WaffleSalad I came here today and want to share, biodegradable usually means compostable in industrial composting on high temperatures.Not "just plant it in soil.".
The real question is what application would 3d prints made from cellulose have though? Cellulose is a great material, but it doesn't have the same strength and durability profiles as PLA or ABS has, which makes the application for cellulose in many cases far less than ideal. It can definitely be used for decorative applications, or applications where it won't be exposed to chemical or environmental factors. It can be used for test prints, absolutely, but often with test prints you want to make it in a material analogous to the final material, so you choose PLA if your final print will be PLA for instance. There is a great paper titled "Advantages and Disadvantages of Bioplastics Production from Starch and Lignocellulosic Components" which is a really good read with a lot of overlap in considering whether bioplastics such as starch based or cellulose based plastics are ideal for hobby 3d printing which I would very much recommend to read. Also, one final misconception. The corn PLA is made from was grown to service industry, it's not corn taken out of human food chains, and in many cases it's not even corn that's fit for human consumption but rather a strain that is grown for it's high starch content to maximize output. Reducing PLA production would have minimal impact on food consumption, that is a much greater issue which deals with macroeconomics, local food shortages, supply chains and not the least the never ending appetite in the western world for imported produce. But that's a discussion for another time. Great video though, and these are definitely important issues which needs to be raised! 🙂
biodegradable prints would be intended for non-permanent applications, such as calibration cubes for Z-Height/extruder tweaking, non-functional prototyping, gag gifts, temporary project housings etc.
DOOTNOOT -Menkalinan- calibration and tests you mainly want to do in the material you want to end up printing in though. Sure if PLA was entirely analogous with cellulose that wouldn’t be an issue, but it unfortunately is not. The other points you point out I fully agree with, but how big of a part of the home 3D printing field do they represent?
I'm so glad someone finally acknowledged this on a 3d printing channel. I love the technology but can't stand some of the wasteful and pointless printing projects out there. I still have (almost) every gram of failed/incorrect prints I've done in hope of eventually getting it properly composted. Hopefully governments catch on and filament producers make some advances in truly biodegradable products.
Good thing with PLA is that burning it doesn't release dioxins and other very harmful gases, however there may be additives in it that may make it burn toxic
Gerard I agree with you. That’s the reason I stopped watching one of the most popular 3D printing channels. I forgot the guy’s name, he has dark hair and wears glasses, and he prints a lot of huge, pointless stuff. Like a two foot tall lion or benchy or something like that. And even on camera he’s careless with the handling of the more easily breakable filaments, you can just tell that he’s a really wasteful person who is completely uncaring about plastic waste. People like him make the 3D printing community look bad.
I really wanted to get into 3D printing a while ago, but didn't have a space where the fumes would be okay. I still don't have that space, but also now I understand the environmental impacts better and I might not get into it even when I have shop space. I wish for a printing technology that doesn't really on plastic. I've seen some stuff with clay / ceramic, but so far it literally only makes coil pots. Powder bed printing is cool and doesn't have to use plastic, but from what I know it's expensive and fussy. Resin printers are just a reason to get uncured resin, which is terrible at pretty much every scale. It's frustrating to me that this technology is so cool but so bad for the environment.
The cheapest kit I've seen to recycle PLA into filament is the Filastruder at US$300 and you can buy quite a few rolls of filament for that. Also unless you have multiple printers running most of the time, one person probably doesn't produce enough waste to keep the recycler going, so you really need a group of people to make it economic. But I also think we need to find a way to either recycle or find a better material.
I AM a material scientist - I am happy to answer any questions I can. Note that if you have a city composting bin, typically that is industrial composting, which means it would degrade PLA, assuming it does not get removed during any sorting process. A common use for cellulose acetate is as the transparent window in foodstuffs like in doughnut boxes since it does let moisture through quite well.
Sorting PLA from other non compostible plastics would likely be too difficult to do. Also the issues of additives as mentioned in the video are a reasonable concern for any "PLA" that could be put into such a composting system.
Here in Germany every town has it's own rules to what can get in the composting bin and what not. 50% don't allow pla because it takes longer to compost than the regular cyclus at the facilitys are, the other 50% don't allow it because it has no benefit to the composted end produkt.
@@nel2834 Composting plastics here in Finland is also problematic because they want to keep composting cycle time around 4 weeks (if I remember correctly) and those plastics would require around 8 weeks to be processed. As it's considered too expensive to sort plastics away from the other waste at industrial level and doubling the composting cycle time is also considered too expensive, we end up with pushing plastics to landfills unless the plastics are burned. It all comes down to money in the end. If doubling the composting time which would already take care of most plastics isn't done because of cost, any real solution to the problem must be less than 2x the cost of not doing anything over the current situation.
@@mellertid incineration/burning vs landfilling is an ongoing debate now. One directly releases the CO2 and the other leads to piles of waste and microplastics. I tend to favor landfilling instead of incineration despite the microplastics. As Angus said, repurposing yourself is the surest bet but the most work. I collect the material, sorted by color in the hopes of one day making new filament with it, though that is fairly unlikely I think.
Thanks, Angus, for putting this out. You're kind of a big deal in the 3D printing community, so if you and a few more community figureheads like SexyCyborg get onboard, maybe manufacturers will listen and spend the dosh to research *actually* biodegradable plastics. In the meantime, I'll just keep saving my scraps to melt into blocks for my blacksmith friend to create knife handles out of. Landfill with extra, pointy, steps!
I wish recycling it back into filament was more affordable. I would love to do that at home. But companies that make filament would probably fight it. Also with PETG becoming a popular filament, recycling PETG bottles is much better than it ending up in the environment.
Re-manufactured filament isn't quite the same quality and characteristics as virgin filament so filament manufacturers will still make pretty good business from people needing higher quality prints than recycled PLA can deliver. Also, people being able to recycle PLA a few times before it degrades too much means they can experiment with riskier print projects without wasting a fortune in fresh filament and possibly boost net sales. If filament manufacturers really wanted to, I'm sure they could embrace filament recycling by selling additive packages in the form of specially formulated PLA pellets to increase the quality of people's recycled PLA.
@@DirkLarien Not really, the more you melt down plastic the more it degrades in quality because the long polymer chains that make it flexible and strong don't link back together. Remelting the plastic could work for a little bit but it wont work forever.
@@MrMoon-hy6pn Good point. Can it be analyzed or measured ? If so how about mixing it with "fresh" trash bottles if the melt mix becomes poor and under set quality threshold.
Angus - there's something wrong here, my experience is that PLA DOES BREAK DOWN. I've been printing for about 7 years now, I repaired some of the flush systems in our loos. These recently broke again so I re-printed the parts in ASA. The original PLA parts had become thin and soft - and not just the parts that were under water. Sun also affects PLA, particularly noticeable for some parts that I made for our greenhouse. This have become brittle and break into shards (as you mention). We also made toppers for Bamboo sticks - and these are also breaking down. I believe that the timescales given for PLA decomposition are unrealistic, probably measured in tens of years rather than two. Decomposition can take many levels, from failure to function, to shards to micro-particles. Given that - I would use a different filament at the prototyping stages. I store my PLA and PETG unusable prints in separate boxes and give those to two different friends - one who recycles into filament and the other makes sheet plastic.
Great post. Pragmatic and realistic. Of course PLA breaks down. Sticking it in the ground and expecting it to be even partially degraded after a couple of years is hilarious.
@@S3NTRY While it might seem appropriate to laugh at that, if you can't ensure that people actually do the right thing, it might actually be the better end condition to design for, because that way even if they don't, the desired outcome occurs Note: even getting closer to this is desirable over the current state of things. If we got even 10% towards that goal it would be a massive improvement
probably highly depend of what manufacturer put in his PLA, i have some old one from 8 years ago and its same as new, main problem most of manufacturers of 3D printer plastics dont survive for long and its hard to get info on what they used in they mix
Well done for covering this long-overlooked topic. I feel the issue of disposing of waste plastic from 3D printing has been the elephant in the room for a long time when it really should be a much larger part of the dialog around this hobby. I hope this episode isn't a one-off and that news and advice on addressing the issue of waste become a regular part of future episodes here and on other chanals.
Thanks for the mention, I really appreciate it and I'm excited that you've covered this topic as well. Hopefully we'll get more people talking about it and help the community to understand that PLA isn't this magical solution to plastic waste that manufacturers would like us to believe.
My first encounter with PLA came several years before I first started 3D printing; the first truly mass-produced 'bio' airsoft BBs were PLA. Not as good for the environment as the literal pressed-starch biodegradable BBs they were replacing, but you could actually use them without every fifth shot exploding inside your gun, and they were affordable. Cellulose filament would be awesome, and cellulose doesn't have to come from trees you know...literally any fibrous plant material will do. Even grass, for instance. Or, if you want a more industrially sustainable scale; bamboo. I don't know that I'd use cellulose filament for final mechanical parts... But I'd definitely use it during the iterative design process and for just faffing about, because I definitely feel a great deal of concern over the waste I generate while designing stuff.
There is another way to dispose of PLA: Burning it. It can be used to generate power, and from my understanding, it only releases as much carbon dioxide as the plants used to produce it consumed. So it would just be a cycle of CO2 being bound by plants, plants being turned into PLA, and then the PLA becomes CO2 again. Burning plastics always sounds kinda bad, but I think it's not that bad with PLA, but actually sustainable, as you aren't adding CO2 to the atomsphere.
Aren't you forgetting to mention toxic fumes, or burning PLA doesn't produce any toxic fumes? We are also burning gas every time we drive so... I know there is someone who will have a corresponding answer.
@@valent_t That's why cars have filters and catalyzers, to get rid of the toxic fumes and particles, and I'm pretty sure they'll use something like that in waste fueled power plants.
@@valent_t I'm sure if such a device was created fumes would be taken into consideration as with anything that releases fumes. In a first world country of course.
What about the chemical processes used to turn the corn into PLA? There is probably at least one chemical reagent that releases C02 to the atmosphere as a byproduct of it's creation
This is something I have thought about trying to use with the desktop injection molding machine as well. I have melted down a lot of old PLA 3D prints but haven't converted those into pellets to reuse yet. I have converted leftover filament on the spools into pellets but not the already printed parts. Definitely something try in the future.
Just one minor point, while the corn used for pla is grown on land that could be /used/ for food it is not an edible variety of corn. Corn grown for starches and ethenol are not actually good for food.
PLA printing material is not pure PLA. PLA is degrades slowly only in the prescence of water over 30 degrees celcius. This degradation rate increases as temperature increases. The other factor is the physical size of PLA. Thin films degrade much faster than thick PLA. Products that are certified compostable from PLA must fully degrade in commercial composting facilites in around a months time. Thick PLA that has additives for 3D printing will not do this but certified compostable PLA will degrade relatively quickly in the right conditions.
Biodegradable doesnt mean "breaks down easily", it just means "wont last forever" unlike oil based plastics. Same thing for "bio" grocery bags. They're ment to be easier on landfills.
Another aspect of recycling is remelting your waste filament into new filament that you could use. Not sure what all it would take to set up a homebrew filament maker or if the filament would be of any quality but if you could just reuse the plastic that wouldve gone to waste I think that would be more or less ideal for dealing with plastic waste. At least that's what i'm baking on, haven't ever thrown away anything to come off my printer, saving it all for when I build a recycler.
A few notes: If plastic is properly disposed of (i.e. industrially incinerated) it's not really a problem compared to other atmospheric carbon sources. Almost all ocean plastic comes from the fishing industry or countries without proper waste disposal. SEA countries import plastic trash to recycle and sell it, they aren't paid to be landfills. The issue is just that one of the reasons it is economically viable to recycle there is lower environmental standards which result in improper disposal of unrecyclable fractions. Cellulose Acetate doesn't biodegrade well, just look at cigarette butts. Funnily enough I had an exam yesterday where CA was an example of a bioplastic that doesn't biodegrade properly.
I made a contact sensor cover for outdoor fence gate thats in the sun the entire day. That was 6 years ago and there has been no change in the plastic. It's still like the day i printed it. However, the printed pla parts for holding a carputer tablet melted and dedormed in one day. I had no idea it got Hot enough to soften PLA inside a vehicle. And the sun wasn't even shining on the PLA parts so it had to have been just the heat inside the vehicle.
Nonetheless, PLA (at least on a biochemical level) is still considerably better for the environment than fossil fuel based plastics. The monomer of PLA (lactic acid) is far less dangerous because even humans produce the enzyme to break down PL(L)A and the products are some simple aldehydes and carbon dioxide, which aren't nearly as dangerous as complex FFBP mixtures, many of which contain carcinogenic or just toxic monomers (remember that PLA is praised for having vast use in the implant and biomedical field). This isn't to mention that PLA degrades considerably more from hydrolysis even under regular circumstances than the alternatives, partially because the process is self catalyzing. Sure, when buried underground, in relatively dry soil away from accumulations of bacteria that may benefit from it's breakdown its highly unlikely to degrade, it is nonetheless still better and a far smaller issue than FFBP's.
I mean ... sure ... who wants a million abandoned Benchy prints floating around the ocean? But, when I print something, I kind of sort of NEED it to last. I don't want a replacement sprog to repair something biodegrading on me. That'd defeat the purpose. So having a readily available biodegradable print material would be a great option, for SOME things. However what we really need are better recycling programs. Why any governments don't take recycling seriously just flabbergasts me. What'd also be just great to have would be at-home print recycling that makes *usable* spools from failed or no longer desired prints, even if that means coming up with a new material. Not just failed gimmicks. Frankly, government subsidized as a recycling program. It shouldn't be this hard.
1:36 - The question there is how would they know they'd been "disposed of". ;-) I've always taken PLA's "bio friendliness" as meaning it's non toxic, and actually somewhat digestible if small bits get ingested by animals. Not that it would magically crumble into compost if left outdoors for a few weeks; that would make it nearly useless.
What can be done on the software side to reduce filament use? Composting is great, but the best is to not use the filament in the first place. Do we *really* need 0.8mm walls? I never see anyone print with single walls. Everyone talks about sanding, but maybe filling is better than sanding(Titebond 3 is great!). With new infill patterns that seem to support the shell better, maybe we need less shell. How could we help people best choose the settings to reduce plastic use? Could there be a contest on printables for low-plastic stuff? Can designers make more use of internal voids in places that don't need infill? How about paper-reinforced prints, or using paper inserts to replace some of the walls? some things could replace the whole bottom shell with a piece of card stock. Maybe we need some way for models to tell the slicer how they will be used, so it can reduce the strength of non load bearing parts? A lot of prints are test and failed prints. How can we make that no longer a thing? What if we put the extruder on a load cell and measure exactly how much pressure we are extruding with, so we can smoosh the layers together with exactly the right amount of force? Can we reduce clogging at all just by using more pressure? Why do we get spaghetti, instead of promoted to clear a jam and continue the print where we left off? What if instead of a heated bed, we had a laser that preheats the point we are about to print onto? The same laser might even be able to do some smoothing! Ultimately I think they just need something like plasma gassification so they can recycle arbitrary trash, but I'd love to print with truly sustainable filament.
just a random info tidbit on the corn used to make ethanol. The corn used to make it is not the same that you and I eat, but instead a different type of corn that is very productive but doesn't taste very good or have many nutrients! obviously you could use the farm land from this strain of corn to other types of more edible food but it itself is not meant to be food.
Here in Georgia, US there are several tree farms. The land is planted for the express purpose of harvesting them for the timber rather than getting timber at the cost of deforestation. It would be cool if the same approach could/would be used to create these suggested filaments. Just, you know, with the right tree (assuming it isn't pine)
The important part of PLA is that it's renewable. THAT is what makes it environmentally friendly. It does not require mining to produce and is made from a material that is endlessly renewable and easy to produce in bulk. Looking only and the end result and using only that to determine how eco-friendly something is will only give you half the picture and lead you too making choices that are more detrimental to the environment in the long run. (Source, I work in Green Building Education vetting products for their impact on the environment. This stuff is HELLA complicated and cannot be so easily simplified down to this hyper focus on "plastic bad because landfills" Nothing biodegrades in a landfill. The things you threw away 20 years ago are still there, compacted and preserved for future archaeologists to wonder over.)
Exactly. Landfills don't help decompose anything. There is no aeration for bacteria or anything else to have air. A landfill is just a giant time capsule of broken shit layered by years.
I love this video; killing misinformation about PLA. Angus, I think this video/theme should be an annual event - so we can review how this mission is progressing and encourage more awareness. Plus, would be good to see you review earth-friendly filaments, spools and products launched over the last year.
Me and my friends just sort all our failed prints by type of plastic, label them properly, and give them to someone with a proper filament recycler. Sometimes we melt and recycle them ourselves too. Usually we make small sorting boxes, ash trays and sheets of plastic for other projects. All it takes is the discipline to sort them properly.
Lots of misinfo in this video; im addressing it here. PLA can be degraded by a VARIETY of enzymes, lipases, cutinases, even recently studies suggest that because of the similarities between PLA and Polyaniline, it can even be degraded by Proteolytic enzymes; its degradation conditions are experienced on a significant portion of the land masses on the surface of the planet. 2 things, firstly, those conditions are actually "Ideal degradation conditions", they represent the FASTEST a degradation will occur; in vivo (living organism like conditions), roughly 37*c with a pH of 7.2 and moist, the entirety of the given PLA part decayed in roughly 2 years; give a little more time to account for environmental conditions, in the human body PLA can degrade extremely fast, for biocompatible implants. The big issue is, plastic waste never really stays on land. It ends up in landfill, which is more alien than you might think, and in Marine environments, PLA never reaches its conditions to degrade, similarly, in landfill it doesnt degrade very well. Water is never a consistent pH, its usually very cold compared to the average surface temperature. Not only this, but PLA may represent a danger to marine life if it managed to make it into the marine ecosystem and remained there for a long period of time, not due to chemical instability, but mechanical action which is equally dangerous. Im not necessarily worried about the chemical action in water, because PLA is used in implants; it's fully biocompatible. Infact, an early equine study used a non-medical grade PLA, not specially made for that purpose, and it turned out to be biocompatible from the get go. The material slowly biodegrades into smaller particles until it becomes Lactic Acid Oligomers and can finally be used by the cells, leaving behind no discernible particles. The issue with these implants is that in vivo, the decay faster the more they decay; as pores form on the surface and enzymes better attach to the inside of the pores, making more pores. PLA is fully biodegradable, I've seen people get confused about the meaning of degradation; incorrectly assuming a plastic which decomposes into smaller and smaller pieces can be referred to as biodegradable; PLA turns into carbon dioxide and water when it is biodegraded. The mass loss is not going to be recovered by digging the dirt around a PLA part. PLA is biodegradable, because 90% of other plastics aren't, they can't be broken down enzymatically, they cant be exposed to heat or light to make them turn into gas. They just become tinier pieces of plastic, and as those tiny pieces decay, they leech their starting chemicals into the ground. Silk PLA is where this confusion comes from, it contains 10-20% Polyester. Polyester is 100% non-degradeable. Ive watched creators use entirely 100% non-degradable filament for so long, but because it said PLA, they assumed it was fine. Ive even seen a degradation test, where the PLA dissolved, but a dust was in the test pot; they assumed it was PLA dust and concluded PLA just decomposes like other plastics do. It was done with silk PLA. All of this being said, discouraging the USE of PLA may not be wise, since PLA is one of a very select few plastics that can be fully incinerated without a catalyst, leaves behind no residue, and in its incineration it only leaves behind Carbon Dioxide, Hydrogen and Water. The problem is we are trying to recycle this objectively difficult feedstock, and the marketing around PLA has made it difficult to educate or explain the material to people. Finally, the solution. What do we use instead? PHA, its a thermoplastic polymer made by enzymes, it's fully biodegradable, not the gimmicky kind, it's the kind where you leave it outside and it will decay because the enzymes outside will eat it, Its been demonstrated time and time again to biodegrade IN MARINE ENVIRONMENTS! Why is it so biodegradable? Because enzymes use it in their natural life cycle to store energy, it's essentially enzyme fat. Turns out, it's also a massively stable bioplastic. It can be printed and depending on its properties, can be ultra high temperature, can be Low temp, its as chemically stable and resistant as Polypropylene; its only water permeable if the water is superheated. PHA negatives? It is a natural product, so it cannot physically all be a consistent color; its not possible without altering it too much. Because it is a rather unique material, it changes the first 24 hours after a print; mineralizing and crystalizing to form a stronger part. The issue with this is, that effect is temperature dependent. You CAN print this material too hot or too cold, and can selectively choose what printing temperature based on how ductile you want your part to be. PHA is still being researched, but so many enzymes use it as an energy storage medium, and there are so many varieties of PHA, aswell as formulations for improving it, and carbon chain lengths depending on what enzyme was used to grow the PHA, it truly is the future in my opinion. If you're worried about your footprint, spend a little more on PHA.
i think the real solution to dealing with plastic is giving them a second life not as a product but as a biofuel that can be burned in municipal solid waste plants which basically just burn trash in an enclosed environment with a bunch of filters before anything is let outside in order to prevent toxic gases and other bad stuff from getting into the environment. they also produce various forms of dust and ash, some of which can be used for renewable concrete, and the lighter stuff can be used to fertilize soil
I think part of the solution is asking yourself if you really need to print what you're printing. We can explore alternate filaments that might have the capacity to break down, but at the end of the day if we create less waste to begin with we'll have waste less to deal with in the first place.
I highly doubt that most hobbyists have the money needed to invest in the equipment to do this. There's really no cost effective way for me to recycle used filament into filament that actually prints reliably.
@@Becvar80 what we need is a cheap service that will recycle prints into filament and sell it for a lower price If we can recycle prints into viable filament for a lower price than making new filament and do it at scale...... that would be even better than biodegradable filament then we are talking . . If we start to make 3d printing something widely used by the majority of a population we can start recycling filament at an systemic level and manufacturing it with a large portion of recycled filament.
If you're looking for something more biodegradable than straight PLA you need PGLA. It's a mix of PLA and PGA, both of which are slowly biodegradable under the right conditions, but the mixture of the two allows moisture to penetrate throughout the material and break it down much more efficiently (although that will still take a year or two, apparently). It's used in medicine for bioresorbable implants. For stuff that disappears even faster, like bioresorbable sutures, one must look towards PCL instead. As a matter of fact, both of these materials do exist as 3D printing filament. Perhaps you could try and see what they print like. But from what I can tell PCL is not that strong and melts at a really low temperature so it isn't really good for much.
i just use my failed prints for %100 infill. If my model can withstand a no infill i just print them to the last top layers. stop melt my leftovers wait them to become pasty and just apply them inside. %100 PERCENT İNFİLLL. (print you walls thicker for structure and melting point becoming harder to achieve for walls.)
Agree. Australian "National pride" for the environmentally aware effectively doesn't exist, and hasn't for a decade. Our coal defending parties are only addressing environment targets this election; which has spawned a hyper conservative party. I've never been so cynical about being Australian.
i found a research paper on printing with cap (cellulose acetate propionate). besides the amazing name, they mentioned that the difference between melting and burning is not very high
If you have a thermal cracking still you could break down plastics into some form of petrol. Also you could treat cellulose with zinc chloride to make a plastic, though the zinc chloride involves washing the paper or cellulose material. Zinc chloride is a salt that will dissolve in water.
12:44 hi, renewable energy student coming off like 2 weeks studying this exact topic! Thats actually not true (probably)! At least in the US, 90% of the corn grown here is for the purpose of feeding livestock, and the process of making ethanol actually *creates* the feed grain used to feed animals as a byproduct! Additionally, ethanol can be made from basically anything that can be used to make alcohol (for example, in brazil they use sugarcane and actually have a dual-fuel economy where drivers can choose to fuel their cars with ethanol fuel or traditional gasoline. Brazil was the first country to take steps like this towards energy independance and independance from foreign oil, which is super cool!) the idea that ethanol 'burns food' is actually a deliberate scare tactic that was created by a washington dc based lobby company on the behalf of the oil industry in the early 2000s. Its total nonsense and just serves to slander a really really promising field of renewable energy that we have the capability to utilize **right now** with very minimal retrofitting of existing equipment and machinery! A study was done TWICE in order to see how much ethanol fuel the USA could produce with the amount of corn we grow now, and they came up with a whopping 1 billion gallons of fuel, a number so startling they did the study again to check. The results were unchanged. Theres definitely problems with the way that ethanol and other cellulose based renewables are sourced (corn farming is terrible for the soil) but it is one of the most promising ways to move away from crude oil, and theres half a century or more of misinfo and scaremongering to deal with first. Regardless, great video as always, i am fascinated with 3d printing but the fact that it is undeniably plastic has definitely been something that has stopped me from getting into the hobby personally. If theres more research done on this kind of fillament and it becomes more available, i might have to finally take the leap! (sources to come, im on my phone and dont have my class documents right now)
Ethanol is a no go for the world as renewable energy. Even in Brasil it is not the favorible thing to do, if we would start from scratch. Now the rain forest is already burned and the infrastructure is built, so we leave it as is. Nowadays by putting solar panels on the same acre you get 10 to 20 times the energy from the field than with using any plant! Why waste the land? You still need to store the energy so you get power in the night and in winter which reduces the effiziency, still way better than with ethanol. On top you dont need fuel, fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides and whatever and more remaining forest can still filter the air and not being a biologically dead corn mono culture. science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/question638.htm www.freeingenergy.com/replace-farmland-farm-corn-ethanol-solar-panels/
If there was a company that I could send my garbage PLA prints to with the knowledge that they'd be recycled into new PLA filament or other things that weren't garbage, I'd totally do it. I'd probably even be more inclined to buy that recycled filament assuming it worked properly. Considering how cheap PLA is, I can't imagine they'd be able to pay for it, but maybe if it could at least pay shipping or something it would be appealing to people. Or if they send in X amount they get a discount on a spindle.
I feel like you forgot that the "3 R" are in a specific order : Reduce, Reuse, and then finally recycle. The issue of plastic waste is something that has been concerning me ever since I joined 3d printing Facebook groups, and saw people telling they got their 3rd, 5th or 10th printer. When i asked them why, they told they were printing 24/7 on their old machines, but they weren't in any business kind of things : just printing trinkets, toys and figurine ... The amount of plastic printed just blew my mind. Some of them were talking in kg/week ... If the first R is reduce, it's for a good reason. I would advocate for printing less, prioritising useful prints over toys, printing with more reliable parameters ... The most recent thing that hit me hard is the speedboat challenge. People spending hours of printime to get to deceiving benchys, that will end up at best in landfill ... *We all need to try 3d printing sobriety* It's not just about if our prints end up in the water
Plastic doesn't necessarily need to be biodegradable, as long as it is recycled (and eventually disposed of) correctly. Here, PLA is collected with other plastics, sorted and recycled. Rejected low quality plastic is not put in landfills but instead burned -- and while that sounds bad the combustion products are filtered, and nearly CO2 neutral as the carbon in the PLA originally came from CO2, and the combustion heat is used to heat houses. And if we don't want to rely on governments, we as a community could also start programs to recycle printing plastics, and maybe also lobby with filament producers to start up recycling programs.
Honestly, simply burning the plastic seems like the best short term option. Sure its releases CO2, but with PLA it's pretty much the same as driving on ethanol, (except for the fact that you need a purposely built facility).
As long as humans burn coal and oil for heat and electricity, not burning the plastics seems like "this is fine" meme. The fact is that as long as we have enough plants groving around the earth, emitting some CO2 is okay. The problem is that we're emitting too much CO2. Replacing some coal with burning plastics doesn't increase or decrease the production of CO2 but it gets rid of the trash as a side-effect, so it seems like a good start to me.
I feel like as a society we need a very deep sorted landfill for pure materials that don't leech. Basically making our own mineral vein to access later. Just so we can stop the flow of mixed garbage. If it's unmixed and decently pure we can just treat it like another mineral, except its one we know about. I feel like that would put a massive delay into our waste issue for the moment.
my 3d printing journey has been more on the artsy side, and now im tempted to experiment with using scrap plastic as melted down sheets that i could cut out instead of printing everything
To all the fellow Aussies watching: if you care about these issues, please please please vote accordingly, the current government really is holding back the country massively :/
I've found a couple of online filament recyclers. You can send them your stuff, and they'll try to recycle as much as possible into new filament. Seems like quite a good system to me. Especially as you can then buy recycled filament from them with a discount.
I really enjoy your videos. You're very knowledgeable on what you talk about and you're easy to understand. I'm brand new to the hobby with only assembling my 3D printer last weekend. I've had many failed prints but that's not why I'm reaching out. I'm wondering, do you have a solution to recycling/reusing PLA plastic? I've seen mention of recyclers online but I don't understand what I'm seeing. Do you know of a machine that I can feed my wasted PLA into and end up with reusable PLA filament? I appologise if you've covered this in a previous video. I just haven't come across anyone covering this topic yet.
PLA is far too small in quantity to even consider recycling it unless it can be combined with other higher volume plastics to make products. In New Zealand a company call FuturePost turns soft plastic packaging and milk bottles into agricultural posts and landscaping products , which don't have the environmental impact of wooden posts treated with poisons to stop them rotting . Plastic quality does not have to be ultra high for this kind of use and they can be repeatedly recycled. So far they have processed 4700 tonnes of waste plastic.
A thoughtful conversation. Note also that burning (plain) PLA may produce a better environmental out come than composting. Burning it (hot, controlled, intentional) produces CO2 and water vapor (almost...there is pigment to think about. PLA + usually has some ABS in there which does not burn so cleanly). Composting it produces CO2, water vapor and methane. Methane is, unit for unit, worse as a greenhouse gas than CO2. Note the end of life section on the Wiki article about PLA. It can also be recycled chemically and a very large percentage can be used to produce virgin PLA (again) with no reduction in quality. Composting under industrial conditions seem ideal, it's more complex than you would think. If you bury it, it will not break down by micro-organisms for hundreds if not thousands of years. BUT.....that is carbon sequestration. Grow corn (or cane) and suck CO2 out of the atmosphere. Turn it into PLA. Make things with PLA. At the end of life, if you bury it the carbon/CO2 does not return to the atmosphere. That's a good thing. Composting and burning return it right back to the atmosphere. One might consider that as carbon neutral. Burying it actively reduces CO2 in the atmosphere which is actually better than carbon neutral. I'm not lobbying for any particular solution, but pointing out that it is a bit more complex than one might think.
50C isn't an unrealistic temperature for a composting bin. Home garden-sized hot compost bins do exist. It's just a matter of having the microorganisms with the proper enzymes. At that point, I imagine you could just throw some additive into your compost bin like you would throw yeast into a wort.
But there's the question of what you do with the compost. Most PLA isn't pure PLA, but has additives. Are those additives something you want in your vegetable garden? I know some PLA, like PolyTerra, use additives that are safe when the plastic breaks down, but most PLA I doubt is that safe.
Recycling will only ever be truly improved by government action, that makes it cost effective.... maybe a plastic tax is needed on virgin plastic goods?
@@S3NTRY I don't mind paying my way sunshine. I can afford to. None of this is going to be dished up to you, no matter what you think you are entitled to. We all will be paying, one way or another.....
I think that the “corn could be eaten reason in your head is kinda odd. Yes, world hunger exists and yes corn can be eaten while trees can’t- but that issue doesn’t exist on a one to one basis. They aren’t comparable in that way. First off, corn is a type of grass, Wich are the fastest growing plants, and trees are some of if not the slowest. So in strict terms of renewal corn is vastly better. In terms of the other thing about corn you brought up, The problem creating hunger isn’t mainly that things that could be food are being redirected into other industries that non foodstuffs could take the place of. Its way WAY more complicated, and redirecting the corn that makes PLA into foods will simply not impact hunger on any sort of scaleable way. (One example of complications, how much corn is grown to feed livestock that would have fed many more people than it did livestock, as well as more people than the livestock it fed will feed) It WILL reduce microplastics, and growing corn in areas *where it can grow* and there isn’t enough food to go around is an option to look into. (Options with their own social nuance, for example, using GMOs to modify it to be able to grow in those areas, wich have their own debate). Lol welcome to my paragraph of a nitpick on a throwaway line.
I printed an articulated stingray. Well several because they are cool. One night while opening the lid of my fish tank it fell in. After less than 6 months of floating in 24 Deg C in a highly bioactive environment with 10-12 hrs a day light, the tail was decidedly looser and the finer details were missing. After a year, I took it out because the tail had completely gone, and the body was quite manky looking. It got algae on it, had some snails live on it, the fish left it alone but it definitely was breaking down.
There is a possible third solution: Sell the enzyme. The enzyme (any enzyme actually) doesn't need a specific temperature to work, it just works better at higher temperatures. Too high, and the enzyme starts to degrade. 50 degrees isn't required, it's just the optimum, same goes for PH (a small caveat, the breakdown of PLA creates lactic acid [as it is Poly-Lactic Acid, meaning many lactic acids] and Acid lowers your PH). That said, I'm not that knowledgeable on the details of the breakdown process. I just know that it's technically possible. You can harvest the enzyme from some bacteria or yeast you coaxed into producing it (or that already produce it themselves). This is fairly common, insulin or the enzymes in your washing liquid come from similar processes. How cheap this is depends entirely on the simplicity of the enzyme, and how easy the organism required to produce it can be kept in a bioreactor.
I am hoping there is a viable at home solution for recycling the used filament into pellets to then use to reprint or make filament. I know there have been several attempts at this, but it's not what I would call viable (too expensive and/or too complicated). I do like the idea of melting the used plastic down, but what about using the melted plastic for some sort of injection molds or some sort of mold...would the melted plastic be able to be poured? I'm thinking no and to be able to do anything like this, the molds would need to be made of a material that could take a lot higher temperature than the PLA (so aluminum, metal, or silicone). I would gather the corn they use to make filament and ethanol wouldn't be suitable for human consumption anyways...much like the corn that is used to feed cattle.
correct me if I'm wrong but is there not a PLA pellet to PLA filament desktop machine, if you simply melt down your old prints into a sheet and then cut them into small pieces, you can just make more filament with it and self recycle it, you won't need any more filament if you melt down old things that you don't want anymore,. this does not solve the issue that's described in the video but it will help it a little bit since there would be less waste generated still not a solution though :c
Or maybe we could engineer an additive for PLA that makes it act like a metal and form an ore instead of breaking down into small particles that can disrupt ecosystems, but coalescing into veins and deposits. If you want to be really future minded why not stop worrying about renewable sources but making sure that we can reuse what we already have. Devote land and money to creating reclaiming and reprocessing sites, that turns plastics into a resource like steel. If we can get 90% of the market to be made of recycled material that means natural processes would only have to worry about 10%, if that 10% doesn't end up getting recycled anyways.
Cellophane is regenerated cellulose produced by the Xanthate process. This is the same process used to produce viscose fibre for clothing manufacture. To make cellopane film the cellulose Xanthate solution is extruded through a slit into an acid bath. This decomposes the Xanthate back into pure cellulose and the film produced is crystal clear when dry. It has a rather characteristic crispy noise when crinkled up which is unlike most other plastic extruded into film. Cellophane is pure cellulose film and it will NOT dissolve in acetone. It is biodegradable in the same way as paper is since both are essentially cellulose. Cellophane does not melt but decomposes when heated just like paper does. It is not a thermoplastic. Cellulose acetate is made from cellulose and acetic acid precursers such as acetic anhydride. Cellulose acetate is a thermosplastic that can be exruded and moulded. It is soluble in acetone and many other organic solvents.
In the UK electronic retailers have a legal requirement to give recycling facilities for their products. I think the same should be for fitment manufacturers
The easiest and fastest potential solution would be to create a cheap and easy to use, all in one machine to grind, dry, and remelt into filament our old and failed prints. Would be awesome if we could use it to turn our drink bottles and more into filament.
I rarely throw away any 3d prints, they end up in a bin that then ends up in a trashbag and I now have 3 trashbags full of PLA+ waste sitting in my closet. I will melt these down and create textured backdrop panel molds for kitchen and bathroom, thank you for this idea I thought I was gonna have to save them until the day someone actually made a reliable filament recycler and make recycled spools.
I guess the best thing I can do with my failed prints right now is just throwing them into the trash. Where I live the trash will be burned and used to heat homes. They have massive filters to clean up the exhaust so pretty much the only thing that gets into the atmosphere is CO2 and water. If you would compost it, the CO2 will escape too, but this way you can at least use the heat. The ash will still end up in a landfill but I don't thing there will be much left of the PLA after it burned.
You can buy your own filament recycling kits for a few thousand, its still pricey but if they become more compact and affordable in future it would be great to be able to throw all those benchies and supports into a machine and get fresh filament out the other end.
In Germany we have various household rubbish. Plastics, aluminum foils or the like are collected separately from normal rubbish and then (hopefully) recycled, the other garbage goes to a incineration plant. With a lot of packaging and plastics, however, I know that it is not recyclable (better said it is not economical to do so) and I consciously throw that into the normal garbage that is burned afterwards. Like this, the chance is lower that some of it will be exported to other countries for "recycling" (because it is cheaper there) and end up in rivers / seas ... What kind of packaging and plastics are really recycled by your waste company can be looked up on the Internet, the rest should burn in a fire 👍 And yes in my opinion it's much bether to burn garbade which can't get recycled instead of shipping it through the globe to throw it in the sea. Plastic isn't a rare recourse, it's just bad for the environment if it's getting there, so burning the crap with a good exhaust filter ist probably the most efficient way to help the environment. And way more cost effective than recycling facilities.
Sadly the average compost bin or pile doesn't get warm enough for long enough to break down cellulose acetate. For someone at home to compost it you would need a special set up with an insulated vessel. While not as intensive as industrially biodegradable plastics this is not feasible for the average homeowner and you would not see complete degradation for many many years. You would likely replace the compost bin a few times before the plastic inside degraded.
The other issue is that there has to be a market for the plastic we make as makers. If there isn't market demand for recycled plastic then we are simply incurring the environmental/energy costs of recycling the material without the benefit of it having additional life. It will just end up in the landfill anyway. Part of the regulation needs to be increasing requirements for manufacturers to use post-consumer material in their products.
Two years later it's fascinating to discover various disciplines in science discussing the benefits of plastics in our oceans and the downsides to removing them. Before we all throw our arms up in horror (which I did), there was a very noteworthy point made and it was this... It's been calculated there is ~90% less driftwood available in our oceans than there was circa pre-industrial times. This has lead many macro & micro-fauna species, from crustaceans to cephalopods, to adopt plastics to play the role driftwood once did - a substrate to lay their eggs upon and even protection for some species broods. So the discussion is leaning towards management (open gate, bolting horse) over total removal which risks killing off thousands of small species critical to the food chain.
I'm sure it's probably due to lack of information, but from what I'm aware, the corn used to make ethanol, plastic, and other products are a breed of corn that isn't very good as a food, not even as feed for animals. Also, regarding trees, from what I remember, most lumber companies plant more trees per year than even the various charity organizations focused on planting trees, because if they don't do it sustainably they'd be chopping their way out of a job. The majority of tree cutting that isn't sustainable is when forest/jungle gets chopped down to make space for other uses, usually farming, because farming will make the people living in those areas more consistent income/survivability.
Excellent work! Great to see a fellow Australian trying to make a difference. After about 5 years diving into the melting pot of common urban plastics, I am convinced that material science based solutions to waste plastic will only be effective in closed loop recycling in commercial industrial scenarios. Closed loop recycling only works in industrial contexts because it is relatively easy to regulate and enforce. Unfortunately cottage industries, which include anything DIY, is inherently anarchistic and antiauthoritarian, so regulation will simply not work with the DIY population. One way forward is to promote integrated solutions that emphasise independence and waste control. Mavericks don’t care how they appear to others, but they are big on privacy, and any waste solution sold as a stealth technology WILL have pull! My solution involves creating keyed bricks etc using waste plastic. It can be scaled for private use, club use, or municipal use. It is ideally suited to non-for-profit social enterprises. Using waste plastic as a binder for other waste products such as crushed glass and aggregate made of exotic plastics, creates a versatile, low transport, repurposing industry that can be customised to suite local waste streams and legacy waste dumps. 3D printing waste simply becomes just another domestic waste stream. The addition of carbon black for UV resistance means that most domestic plastic waste can be repurposed locally for durable non-load baring elements for common urban civiic projects: Guttering, edging, bollards, fencing paving, retaining walls, geo-mesh for reinforcing earth, emergency flood mitigation, drains, culverts. A coating of sand and inorganic pigments, will make the objects aesthetically pleasing. The addition of steel reinforcing will do for waste plastic what it does for concrete. If we turn all waste plastic into valuable resource, it will cease to be a problem.
Forget about it, we need to start printing and reusing PET. We either print durable, usable objects or nothing at all. Test prints and trinkets are fine, but it needs to be in a material that doesn't degrade with reuse and we have to reuse it. PET is the best one that I know of. Don't look for biodegradable (like paper and cardboards), look for endurance and reusabilty( like metals and glass).
I dont understand why there aren't more companies using industrial composting facilities with special collecting stations for people to dump their 3d prints. They would literally be getting free material with the added benifit of being seen as a good company which is very rare tthese dsys
The Problem is that the main advantage of PLA and every other plastics is that it is not desolveable in water (Because of that it had been invented). If it would desolveable in water the airhumidity and other thing like mushrooms would destroy such objects. Also in some cases you want products that are waterproof and and resistant to many enviroments (Meat packaging, bottles, or maybe 3D printed objects which get into contact with water). I think There are two solutions. Recycling, through machines that can seperate materials and produce new products like new filament. Or machinery that can break down Plastics through chemicals into harmless komponents. But i think biodegradeable plastics are not the solution.
My solution is i built a system that recycles my unused, failed, or leftover filament back into filament that i can reuse. its a reverse 3D printer if you will, and getting this technology to a point that its more affordable for more people instead of it being something you need to build/design yourself is IMO more of a realistic solution. i use ABS, Nylon, PETG, because its more shock absorbent, flexible, and heat resilient than PLA which is quite brittle and weak by comparison.
Fun fact Angus: Cellulose is a sugar (chemically), so the caramel-y smell and burning would be the properties of the sugar coming out. Now, for using as a filament and extruding, I imagine it may end up working like cooking sugars, where if you want less brittle filament you would likely have to add another element to act as almost like a softener.
There’s a reason people don’t recycle more often. You can pry and beg and give evidence why recycling is better, but until recycling matches the convenience of throwing stuff away, people won’t do it. A solution I thought of is to make a company that takes trash the same as all the others, but instead of a landfill it goes to a recycling center where workers there do the job of sorting.
KiwiFil in NZ (based in Auckland) are recycling PLA and it's good stuff - I wouldn't know it's any different from filament made form new plastic. We should support manufacturers making recycled filament by..... well........ buying it.... and sending our junk back to be recycled.
It sucks that we've not found a viable mass-producable plastic filament yet. Perhaps getting someone like Prusa on board would give the industry more of a wake up call. Hell if they can produce a prusament filament that is truely biodegradeable then other companies would quickly change their production lines to compete. I'm no expert at all but in the UK we've got "Biogen" plants that essentially take waste food and animal poop and put it into a huge container. The heat from it is used to generate electricity. I wonder if throwing in a bunch of PLA to force it to get to that high temperature needed to biodegrade would work.
I mostly make prints for fun and just make figurines etc for my own enjoyment. If someone come's out with a plastic that's not a complete nightmare to print, and is also biodegradable, I'd switch to it overnight. For now, I just try to be selective about what I print so I'm not just churning out junk that will sit in a parts bin.
What about getting a pla recycler which grinds up your prints and an extruder melt down the ground up pellets to make recycled pla filament to be used again?
I think recycling of PLA is the way forward - reason being that I want the stuff I print to not disintegrate. Recycling my PLA leftovers would be very useful. Some might become pieces for use, but even if they become a test print, it still reduces landfill impact. I could image a printer that has two spools: Virgin PLA for the main print and recycled PLA for supports, infill, rafts and the like. More feasible than these alternative filaments.
I wonder if cellos can be used in 3d printing in a different way than as filament? Like a resin printer. Or with a mold and mass production of final products.
Are there any decent desktop filament recycling machines available? Perhaps my ignorance speaking but I can't imagine it'd be that complicated of a machine to make. IMO could go a long way to help people feel as though they're being less wasteful with their prints.
I wonder if it would be possible to make a type of plastic that can be remelted indefinitely to turn it back into filament, sort of like metal recycling? I'm not a chemist, so I'm guessing there's reasons that's impractical, but it would be the ideal
But you can melt PLA and turn it back into filament. You can even buy a filament extruder for a couple of grand. I think CNC Kitchen has one. (I definitely remember a few videos on the subject) If I had piles of old prints I'd definitely consider it (it helps if you don't mix materials i.e. keep PETG separate to PLA etc)
In germany, residual waste is burned in large incinerator facilites. And since PLA is made of corn, it's even CO2 neutral. There is no way this lands in the sea where i live
