Filament recycling

this is a great feature!

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“If every person everywhere changed that to I will make the changes”

That is the whole point of this, they don’t. many just don’t care enough to try. If all these people drive around in there giant SUV’s burning great gobs of fuel and wasting materials without a conscious thought about it, then the little bit of plastic we waste isn’t going to matter at all. We can all do more good trying to fix the big things.

On a similar note, they now make 3D printers that print chocolate, just use one of them. If you have any waste or scrapped material just send it to me and I will dispose of it for you.

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Well, maybe. But how much energy did the supply chain use getting you the plastic to print the sugar bowl at home? And how much extra energy did your printer use, compared to one bowl’s share of the mass injection-molding machine in the factory?

The reality is that small hobby manufacturing, of whatever material, is never going to be more energy efficient than mass production. Are current business practices a big part of the problem? Yes. But the solution there is not giving everyone a 3d printer; the solution there is to get people to stop needing a new sugar bowl every year. (Well, sugar bowls are probably a bad specific example, but there are lots of things that we, as a society, buy and never use or replace even though the old one is still just fine, and its that practice that has to stop.)

As for 3d printing proper… I’ve accepted that it’s not a super environmentally friendly hobby. Waste plastic mostly isn’t practical to recycle. Spools end up in the landfill. I’m in Alberta, which means most of my electricity still comes from burning dragons. Running a 3d printer in my home is going to raise my environmental impact, and the only way around that is to not run the printer.

I’m doing what I can, by trying hard to minimise wastage (which also has a money impact for me, of course) and in general buying filament that comes on cardboard spools or that comes as just a coil that one puts on a reusable spool. Because those spools have zero utility for me once they’re empty and they end up in the trash, so that’s one thing that’s easy to do. And hey, if we all started putting 90% of our filament-buying money into companies that avoided disposable injection-molded spools… there’d be a lot more companies offering environmentally positive alternatives.

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So are we suppose to just give up 3D printing at home?

The main problem is to many people making to much crap and the only effective way to reduce the problem is for all of us to leave this mortal coil IE: off our selves. Not for me. Every solution to this problem just makes things worse.

Drive electric cars—just moving the pollution from the tail pipe to the smoke stack with increased inefficiencies, so even more pollution.

Hydro electric-----severe local environmental consequences.

Power your car with solar/wind power— when you look at the whole cradle to grave situation, solar/wind power are the most polluting of all power generation. Toxic chemicals used in fabrication, high energy use in fabrication and end of service problems. There are “dead” towers and stacks of wind turbine blades piling up around the world with no way of disposing of them, just a couple of examples.

A lot of people placate themselves by saying “I’m doing my bit” but in reality they are not achieving anything of true value. No I think I will just keep using my printer and I’m willing to accept the true cost of shipping chocolate to my house.

well, that’s a good point except. I’m going to print one unit from a spool that’s made in Canada for the most part. I think if you find the base cost for one of those injection-molded bowls all things considered it would be pretty close, there more to consider than you might think. I can print my bowl and in the same spool print a part that keeps an appliance from going to landfill. The money and time I spend don’t go to the dollar store who is going to want to replace that bowl I buy for another one and that dollar will contribute to the dealer taking the bowl supplying activity to another county to squeeze a couple more pennies out. To the person in another country that is going to order a new injection molding line and the thousand other portions of that dollar spent to support that machine, and then for the rest of its life of making sugar bowls that will 100% wind up in landfills.

no, and I’m not giving up, my pickup truck either. everything that lives uses its environment, nothing in nature is perfect either, except the paradox is that nature is actually a perfect system made of imperfect processes. It will sort us out no matter what we do. Moving forward is not wrong even if it isn’t perfect. Eventually, you’ll hit on the right things and nature will help you along. The goal is generations away and we will not see it in our lifetimes, but we can make progress much easier instead of fighting every little thing. Those people that are doing their bit and striving to do more have a huge effect, even just making it a part of their lives and keeping the idea in the heads of people around them. The only thing we have to watch out for are the people that want things to stay the same. They don’t have our best interest at heart and will damage society to keep whatever it is they are protecting.

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I agree with you for the most part but when I look at the whole world and what a mess it is in, not just our little bit of it, what we do here will have no serious impact on the global environments future. It will take the effort of China, India, Brazil, USA and other countries with large populations and pollution levels to make the major changes that are necessary and they are not doing it. This is why I find people worrying about the little bit of waste from our 3D printers a bit ludicrous. Those that think we should “lead the way” don’t understand that most of the world just doesn’t care about us or what we say, we are small potatoes as far as the planet goes. Do what you can locally, sure but don’t think it will solve anything globally, just don’'t bite yourself on the arse doing it. I am a realist not someone who see’s things the way they want them to be but how they actually are. We live or die by other peoples smog.

"nuf said.

Oh man I which cura would include those symbols. It’s about time.

Yes but I’ve discovered from a tip that you can use the “per model settings” and subtract or add a model of the symbols in your parts. it’s a little limited but it does seem to work, I’m still exploring it

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Shouldn’t those things be added in your CAD or some other drawing program that you use. I suppose if you only download models off the web it might be useful.

I counted just recently because I couldn’t fine the one file I needed. I have 1270 or so parts models (and some not even numbered from when I started) I’ve made and printed over the last year, that I have saved STL files for, sorted by part number. if I need to reprint one of those parts and I want to use ABS or PLA next time instead of PETG then I have to make a whole new STL from the original design … I also have to track changes in solid works and fusion in case the part changed in the mean time so there maybe more than one STL for a single part. It would be better for me to be able to pick the material I have in my hand the moment I go to print it instead. I haven’t put any symbols on anything yet too, so it’s on the list of nice to have. this works pretty well actually and takes only a few seconds to add at the slicer.

I’m with Glen it is very easy to add such things with the slicer. Also in fusion is is not all that easy to use one meat to cut from a second. It can be done but is isn’t nearly as simple.

The symbols are great, but the truth is there is no market for recycled plastic. If people knew how much of the stuff they diligently rinse and separate ends up in the ground, they’d give up. That’s why local governments (used to) to sell it to Asia by the container load and it all ended up in the Pacific, murdering turtles.
Plastic is a fact of life. No one who remembers a world without it, and few if any still do, would contemplate a return. It is a great leveler and social good.
What’s left, you may ask? Tell your local honchos to buy a chimney with a good scrubber and burn it. Use the heat to produce electrons and warm a community pool.

Well, the symbols also can help with this. I have a part in the shop I’ve printed in black PETG and, PLA twice. the filament I used for the PLA parts is shiny just like the PETG and they are hard to tell apart. I have the part numbers already on the part. if there were symbols I could tell what the plastic is. probably a narrow use case though.