DMS could just buy a three of their zero waste boxes. The idea is they send you a box, you fill it up and send it back, they recycle / compost. Once they’re full, somebody just needs to drop them off wherever is appropriate (shipping label is included in the purchase). To cover all the filaments, we’d need these boxes:
I’m not trying to guilt anyone into changing their ways, but for those that would like to, here’s some info on 3D printing waste I discovered on my own:
We really should not be placing any waste from 3D printing in Dallas’ municipal recycling bins. The items cannot be easily identified during sorting (if they even go to a sorting facility instead of the landfill), and misidentified or small items cause problems in the various recycling processes. This means 3D printing waste goes in the trash.
If you’re like I was and think you’re doing the smart thing by using PLA, realize that even though it’s made from bio materials (which is great), it requires industrial composting to decompose; Dallas does not compost any waste (few municipalities do). This means our hobby adds plastic to the landfill, the environment (if it doesn’t make it all the way to the landfill), or in our food (if it ends up in the environment).
I know 3D printing waste is probably a drop in the bucket compared to all the other things that could be recycled, but there are many existing programs for people that want to recycle other products. Additionally, there are many very small particles as a result of 3D production - it’s likely these end up where we don’t want them.
I’m very curious about the 3D printing process and am anxiously waiting for more Plastics classes to come up. But my question is, can’t you reuse the waste you generate from 3D printings? In plastics, whatever is discarded can be melted down again and reused to almost eliminate waste completely because it’s already grouped by plastic type at the time of recycling.
The problem is that the tolerances required to get quality prints are very precise, and most at home filament extruders are either not precise enough, super slow, etc. Plus they are expensive and bulky. Plastics also can’t be infinitely melted and reused, as they lose some of their properties every time they are melted.
Recycling like that was attempted and deemed impractical on DMS scales. Once you heat a thermoplastic, you do some chemical damage to the polymer, so multiple heat+extrude cycles causes more and more damage which makes it difficult to extrude and weak. Because of this most people doing plastic recycling will only use something like 20% recycled plastic and the remainder virgin (new) material. From a practical standpoint, recycling 3d prints is difficult because in order to form decent filament, the material needs to be kept clean while it’s being collected and stored (not something people are used to worry about with the scraps), and needs to be shredded into small, consistent, pellet-like shapes so the material mixes evenly with the virgin material you’ve added, and moves through the extruder evenly without the risk of jamming or entrapping air in the screw. Then there’s the filament extrusion itself where the filament must be extruded at a constant rate, ideally under a constant tension from the winder, cooled evenly and consistently, and collected into some bundle or spool without getting tangled.
I think DMS got rid of their filastruder a while back, it was fun to play with occasionally but not a practical way to make filament.
I am interested in recycling failed prints. I have that size box full, sitting under my desk. If we open it up for broader drop off it would fill up pretty quick.
None of the the 3d printer plastics can really be recycled in the city recycle bins to my knowledge. Think Dallas just landfills anything except glass and aluminum.