Plastic recycling, while seemingly a good idea, has apparently had a difficult time. Dave Hakkens, a student at the Design Academy Eindhoven, has created an inexpensive way to do it yourself.
As part of his final project at the Academy, Hakkens investigated the lifecycle of plastic and found it is highly complex and much of the problem is derived from the difficulty in sorting out different kinds of plastic. Industry doesn’t want to receive plastic that’s an inconsistent mix of different materials as their machines will complain and products won’t be as accurate.
Hakkens developed several machines which could be used together to recycle neighborhood plastic items. It’s not clear how (or even if) he solved the sorting problem, but the result is cool regardless.
Now, if only someone could add a machine capable of reliably extruding highly consistent filament to this mix, we could conceivably have neighborhood filament shops.
Via Creative Arte (German)