this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2023
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3D Printing

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Does anyone know of any US based facilities which I can send plastic waste to? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 year ago by MonkeyLord@lemmy.ml to c/3dprinting@lemmy.ml
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The plastic waste has always been my main concern with 3d printing, with supports, failed prints, rafts, and other such realities of the hobby it builds up quick.

I have looked into local recycling services, but they aren't equipped to deal with these plastics. I have also looked into industrial grade composting for my PLA but again, nothing in the area seems ready or willing to deal with it.

After looking into shipping boxes of sorted filament to be recycled into more usable rolls I could only find services based in Europe unfortunately.

Would love any help

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[–] Kelbesq@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

All of the ones I knew of disappeared. I don't think it's really financially viable for the companies that were trying to allow folks to ship materials, without it being obscenely expensive. And to be honest, the idea of shipping waste seems backwards. Local seems like the only good sustainable answer, and I haven't found any in my area.

What I did was find a local maker space that had a grinding machine, and ground up my used PLA. I then donated it to the space for misc usage. Folks there use the PLA chips for all sorts of projects.

[–] MonkeyLord@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hmm... okay, that makes sense. I'll look around some more for places, but if worst comes to worst I can always pick up a hobby level filament extruder.

[–] Kelbesq@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Those are extremely expensive. You'll never recoup your costs unless you have a significant amount of scrap. If you are doing it be a good citizen, the maybe find some other locals who would use it was well?