While many view 3D printing as the future of fabrication, the technique uses a lot of plastic. One company, however, is trying to cut down on just how much plastic it uses.
The company is called 3D Brooklyn, and it is a small studio that uses materials like potato chip bags, which can’t really be recycled in the traditional way. Chip bags are created using a blend of polypropylene and polyethylene, making it very difficult for them to be recycled.
3D Brooklyn gets its chip bags from TerraCycle, a recycling company based in New Jersey. TerraCycle melts down the bags into separate pellets. Those pellets are then used by 3D Brooklyn to make the filament for the 3D printers. 3D Brooklyn doesn’t just use that filament for its own projects, however, and also sells the recycled chip bag filament to other companies to use in their own operations.
It’s really a great way to recycle something that otherwise wouldn’t be recyclable. In addition, it is an idea that could really help with the issues that we currently have with recycling, especially considering that there are plenty of materials we currently can’t really recycle.
[“source-techtimes”]
