Category:Precious Plastic

ProjectInfoBox Precious Plastic
Status:	some parts ordered
Release Date:	first machine(s) in 2018?
Initiator:	Dave Hakkens
Team:	Lukas, Mitja, Armin, Johannes, Luca, Sebastian, Martin, Flor, who else would like to help?
Materials Used:	plastic waste

Precious Plastic is an international community working on plastics recycling. You can download their entire "kit" of documentation on various open-source machines here.

There are several members who are interested in building one or multiple of their machines (see InfoBox).

Goal

Plastics are very versatile materials, but are mostly made from non-renewable sources and can persist in the environment for very long times after their (often short) intended life cycle.

Naturally, many people concerned with sustainability have tried to come up with ways to reuse, repurpose and recycle "waste" plastics and we want to join them! As a community workshop, we can build machines that individuals might not be able to and share them with interested people in the area. Maybe the CoMakingSpace becomes a bit of a recycling hub in the near future?

Collecting/Preparing Waste

Something we can already do is collecting materials and sorting them for further use - starting with waste from the 3D printer farm, for example. There would just need to be separate containers for PLA, PETG and whatever else people are printing with, and some sort of clear signage alerting everyone of the importance to sort carefully.

Mixed colors will give nice effects, but mixing different plastics might mess everything up due to their different melting points.

• how to wash & dry?

Machines

Besides specially built machines, we may also be able to use some existing ones for plastic recycling experiments:

• drying ovens
• heat gun
• hot air soldering station
• what else can you think of?

Shredder

laser cut shredder parts before assembly

Plastic needs to be cut into manageable pieces before it can be recycled - therefore, the shredder is the first machine we are building!

Injection

=> Instructions

...to be built once the shredder is finished

Extrusion

=> Instructions

...perhaps to be built once the injection molding machine is finished

Compression

=> Instructions

...we're probably not going to build this one anytime soon but will rather try using weights and a drying oven

Rotomolder

Not part of the precious plastic portfolio - could be made from an old cement mixer, just needs some add-ons for temperature control, a timer and some way to automatically rotate the handwheel (Flor has some experience with it).

You can make cool hollow shapes with a rotomolder, e.g. lamps like these!

Further Inspiration

• "Kunststoffschmiede" (Rosenwerk) on Instagram - many interesting views into their progress, first mass production pieces like "piranha clamps"