A European filament producer offers the ability to recycle certain polymers.
Recycling is an option few 3D printer operators consider because itās simply too difficult to do.
Local recycling depots donāt work because 3D print scraps donāt have a recycling stamp on it. That stamp identifies what type of plastic is present and whether it can be recycled. If thereās no stamp, recycling staff canāt classify the item and it then goes to the landfill.
The technical process of recycling is also challenging, as the wide range of colors and materials means that any filaments produced will be of random colors. That is, even if you can separate the material types.
Because of these challenges itās quite rare to see any 3D printer waste recycling services.
Thereās one in Germany: Recycling Fabrik.
This company markets a range of 3D printer filaments made from recycled material. Their two lines are rPLA and rPETG, and you can guess which materials they are made from. They offer quite a number of unique colors, including āMystery Boxā. That box is most likely due to the variability of input materials for production.
Recycling Fabrik accepts batches of 3D printer waste, and even non-printed items like packaging and injection molded products, including empty spools. There are two catches, however.
First, these are supposed to be āsingle sortā materials. This means itās all PLA or all PETG, for example. The second catch is that the batches must be more than 100kg of āpure materialā.
That could be challenging for some smaller 3D print operations and especially for individuals. However, there are plenty of larger operations using 3D print farms that would certainly produce huge amounts of polymer waste.
They have quite a system for recycling that involves collecting āpointsā. For each quantity of recycled materials provided to the company, they award a number of points. Each point is worth ā¬0.02 (US$0.02) against future material purchases.
Input material must be classified into five categories:
- 1 – Heavily soiled
- 2 – Soiled
- 3 – Slightly dirty
- 4 – Slightly soiled and labeled
- 5 – Clean and sorted by material
Ideally in their system, a kg of class 5 material gains 100 points, or about US$2.20. They do provide an online calculator for estimating the value of a shipment.
This is quite an interesting operation, but unfortunately due to shipping costs it is only feasible within Europe, and especially Germany.
What the industry needs is a series of similar operations located regionally. These would provide easy access for 3D printer operators to collect and ship material for re-use.
Via Recycling Fabrik
