Everyone makes mistakes printing on paper once in a while, but when it comes to 3D printers those mistakes usually mean plastic doomed for the landfill.
When a group of three engineering physics students at UBC started using 3D printers to produce plastic models and parts, they were shocked to see how quickly garbage bins stacked up with plastic waste from mistaken prints. That experience propelled UBC students Dennon Oosterman, Alex Kay and David Joyce to develop a plastic recycler, ProtoCycler, to turn plastic waste into the material needed for 3D printing. With the boost of seed money from a $10,000 student entrepreneurship award and an Indiegogo campaign which raised over $100,000, the team spent last year developing their Toronto-based company ReDeTec (short for Renewable Design Technology) before launching ProtoCycler.
“When you’re given this power to create whatever’s in your head by just clicking a button, you do it, you take your mind up on that offering and you start making things and you find out after the fact, oh, it doesn’t quite fit,” said Oosterman.
“But it’s easy, you just make a fix and make it again. It’s just a click of a button so who really cares. Other than every time you click the button, you’re generating waste and spending some money.”
Recycling plastic used in 3D printing isn’t as simple as putting it in the recycling bin. Unlike standard plastic bottles and containers stamped with the type of plastic they’re made from, plastics used in 3D printing are unmarked and impossible for recycling depots to determine which type it is. It eventually ends up as waste.
“Even if you do recycle your plastic, it is labelled and all of that. It’s still being loaded up on a truck likely powered by diesel, shipped away, processed by huge, massive, energy-hungry factory and shipped back to you,” explained Oosterman.
Other materials used in 3D printing include metal, ceramic and wax.
As 3D printing become increasingly widespread among businesses, industries, hobbyists and researchers around the world, the problem of plastic waste from 3D printers is still ahead of its time. It will likely take larger amounts of waste to draw public awareness or lead to regulation.
Brock MacDonald, CEO of the Recycling Council of British Columbia, said this is the first time he’s heard of 3D printer waste as a problem. “It’s not regulated. It doesn’t fall under the B.C. recycling regulation,” he said. He agreed that any unmarked plastic that ends up in the depot would have to be thrown in the garbage.
ProtoCycler contains a patented melter that will grind up any used plastic such as bottles and containers into filaments — the plastic coils that are used in printers to produce plastic objects. The team is also aiming to close cost loopholes with their machine.
Typically, filaments are sold for up to 10 times more than their raw form, which resembles micro beads called pellets. The ProtoCycler will turn pellets, used household items and “mistake” prints into filaments for as much as the cost of the pellets, according to ReDeTech. The students claim a kilogram of filament created by ProtoCycler costs $5 from pellets and at no cost produced from used plastic. The cheapest store-bought filament starts at $30.
ReDeTech has sold up to 150 units through Indiegogo and has orders for another 100. Pre-orders for ProtoCycler start at $699.
