Recycling 3D Filament

3D Fabrication
#1

Today is my first official day as a member, and I am wondering why we don’t recycle 3D filament here?

I can see that we used to have a filament extruder in the Fab Lab, but it was removed. There is a great organization called preciousplastic.com that has come out with open source plans for plastic recycling machines. These machines can shred, extrude, inject, and compress plastics into useful materials. I think that this would be especially useful for DMS considering all the filament we go through every day.

Is this a project that has been considered before? Or is this something that anyone is interested in?
Thanks!

#2

It’s the kind of thing everyone in 3D printing tries once. Once they’ve tried it, they decide it’s either their primary focus, or it’s not worth it.

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#3

Iits not cost effective, and we cannot implement saving filament scraps properly

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#4

My understanding is we built one and gave it a go, then gave it back to the builder. But if you’re intrigued I say build one and maybe you can collect people’s rejects for yourself if nothing else comes of it…or you build a better mousetrap than than the last time and we end up going greener. I have also seen some cool ones with shaped extruders for making tubes and such. Theres a Plastics SIG you can join!

Welcome to DMS!

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#5

You can get a new roll of filament for $15. To make a $300 machine + (they say 10 days) of work + the time to shred and recycle and extrude the filament + the cost of virgin pellets worth it, you would need to go through hundreds of kilos worth of plastic.

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#6

We could get a JPMorgan ship to help. I hear they are in the hundreds of kilos game now

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#7

Welcome aboard!

So you’re going to stockpile ABS and PLA scraps?

Good, I’m gonna need about 10,000 kg to achieve Low Earth Orbit. That stuff burns like a madman.

#8

Could you tell me more about this Plastics SIG? I’m not sure what you mean,

Thanks!

#9

The terminology took me forever to figure out when I joined…

All the areas of DMS are divided into committees (machine shop, 3D printing, laser, etc). Those committees form Special Interest Groups to further subdivide. Woodshop has the multicam SIG, CA has a sewing SIG, and machine shop is about to have a plastics SIG.

They’ve got a bunch of equipment in the new warehouse at the moment (table saw, shapeoko, dust collector, sanders, etc), but they’re waiting on the move into that space before they set it all up.

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#10

there hypothetically could be value in making plastic blocks in a toaster oven and then milling the results for random projects. but for making filament it’s a no go. i’ve never tried it but i trust the opinions of everyone i’ve spoken to that has tried to implement such a system wenther or youtube or at various other maker spaces.

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