What number of plastic spoons, knives, and forks do you assume we throw away every day? [Stefan] famous that the compostable kind is constituted of PLA, so why shouldn’t you have the ability to recycle it into 3D printing inventory? How did it work? Test it out within the video under.
[Stefan] already has a pleasant setup for extruding filament. Nonetheless, unsurprisingly, it gained’t settle for spoons and forks immediately. A blender didn’t assist, so he used an industrial plastic shredder. It lowered the utensils to what seemed like coarse mud, which he then dried out. After working it by way of the extruder, the ensuing filament was skinny and brittle. [Stefan] speculates the plastic was arrange for injection molding, nevertheless it at the least confirmed the idea had benefit.
In a second try, he reduce the ground-up utensils with recent PLA in equal measures. That’s, 50% of the combo was recycled, and half was not. That made way more usable filament. So did a special model of compostable plasticware.
The actual take a look at was to take soiled plasticware. This time, he soaked utensils in tomato sauce in a single day. He cleaned, dried, and shredded the plastic. This time, he used 20% new PLA and a few pigment, as effectively. We aren’t positive that is well worth the effort merely on economics, however in case you are dedicated to recycling, this may be value your whereas.
It all the time looks as if it ought to be straightforward to extrude filament. Till you attempt to do it, after all. Recycling plastic bottles is very fashionable.