Recycling my failed prints?
Hi there,
I want my failed prints and filament spoils to be recycled back, but there is no specialized centre here that deals with filaments that can be recycled and put back into sale.
I am thinking about the environment and see that around 40% of my prints end up as failed for variety of reasons, and I can improve if I print same parts over and over again, but on new print designs its hard to keep the failed prints down.
So what are Prusa and other '3D print companies' doing to avoid these plastics from ending up in the oceans/environment and provide a solution and not add to the problem the 3d print community is contributing too if something is not done to curb the dump of our plastics that are not recycled which leads to harming our planet.
Reading through the manual, it talks about contacting you local recycling centre(s) but like I said this is not always the case as these centres are not capable of handling this type of material for recycling, let alone put back on sale for re-use again.
Thank you in advance
RE: Recycling my failed prints?
Prusa have started injection moulding printer parts using waste and rejected filament from their factory, which is a small step. Many people who use printers would like to recycle waste, but the machinery to do so is expensive, and not economically viable for home users.
Check out this recent thread for details of some of the options https://forum.prusa3d.com/forum/english-forum-general-discussion-announcements-and-releases/recycling-3d-prints/
RE: Recycling my failed prints?
@gordon-w and rest of Prusa team.
Can there be a drive to ensure plastic recycling forms a part of Prusa's commitment to ensuring our environment (oceans, rivers, landfill) is protected against our filament plastic waste ending up been thrown away please.
I have been looking at this over last few months myself and agree with Gordon's response that recycling on our own is an extremely costly exercise to achieve by ourselves.
But there are communities and groups out there that are trying to tackle that by offering the tools/blueprints to build your own recycling machines to get you started in the right path, like for example:
Check their youtube, shows clearly how advance their hardware is, but against must invest time, effort and money to get these working components done.
Recycling should now one of Prusa's main efforts of keeping our planet clean of plastic by offering solutions to recycle our failed prints etc..
No excuse for this!
Thanks