11–20 of 57 posts
The only comforting thing to me about the waste (apart from the fact that our personal 3d printer waste is a margin of error compared to industrial waste so honestly, just don’t worry about it), is that at least PLA is biodegradable.
The only comforting thing to me about the waste (apart from the fact that our personal 3d printer waste is a margin of error compared to industrial waste so honestly, just don’t worry about it), is that at least PLA is biodegradable.
"the term biodegradable used by manufacturers and distributors can be somewhat misleading for the final consumer" https://www.beease.com.hk/post/how-long-does-pla-take-to-dec...
I don't want people to see plastic waste from 3D printing and be discouraged to try it out as a hobby. I just got my first 3d printer 6 months ago (and I did all this biodegradable research mostly so my wife would feel comfortable with it). But the benefits of rewiring your brain in a manufacturing mindset, having the ability to create things, solve custom problems, etc, far outweigh the negligible (in the grand scheme of things) amount of waste compared to all the other plastic shit (toys, etc) the masses buy on amazon. That was my main point.
But it's good to know that it could still take 80 years, and is not as quickly biodegradable as originally thought.
The only comforting thing to me about the waste (apart from the fact that our personal 3d printer waste is a margin of error compared to industrial waste so honestly, just don’t worry about it), is that at least PLA is biodegradable.
"the term biodegradable used by manufacturers and distributors can be somewhat misleading for the final consumer" https://www.beease.com.hk/post/how-long-does-pla-take-to-dec...
But once it's fragmented, it's rapidly degraded. So it doesn't contribute to persistent microplastics.
It also does not take 80 years in normal environmnets.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly wtf does the glue matter when people are going through plastic like it's nothing? Bringing up the glue is such a weird nitpick.
Do nothing: 10 pounds of filament poop has go to the landfill. Do this thing: 10 pounds of filament poop still exists, + 8 pounds of glue sticks (which is basically a thermoplastic) used, to create something that's eventually going to end up in a landfill. Are you being deliberately obtuse? Recycling or reuse is not as useful as just not creating waste in the first place.
Let’s say every month the artist repurposes the last pile of plastic with more glue. At the end of one year, the 10lbs would turn into 1100lbs. At the end of two years the original 10lbs would have turned into 1.3 million lbs of plastic waste. Surely that would frame a very powerful message about plastic waste and green washing misleading public policy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do nothing: 10 pounds of filament poop has go to the landfill. Do this thing: 10 pounds of filament poop still exists, + 8 pounds of glue sticks (which is basically a thermoplastic) used, to create something that's eventually going to end up in a landfill. Are you being deliberately obtuse? Recycling or reuse is not as useful as just not creating waste in the first place.
So... don't 3D print anything?
So the author recycled 10 pounds of plastic, but used 8.5 pounds of glue to do so (184 sticks at 0.74 oz which seems to be average for glue sticks). Cool project, but that ratio seems very ineffective. Especially since there is a realistic chance this ends up in landfill within some decades anyway.
95+% of the carbon footprint of plastics comes from production and manufacturing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"the term biodegradable used by manufacturers and distributors can be somewhat misleading for the final consumer" https://www.beease.com.hk/post/how-long-does-pla-take-to-dec...
Interesting. I will do more research on this, thanks. But at the end of the day, even though it's tough for us to see the PLA poop, etc from our prints (I still generally don't like it), my point is that hobbyist plastic waste is basically negligible and making nearly zero difference. I don't want people to see plastic waste from 3D printing and be discouraged to try it out as a hobby. I just got my first 3d printer…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"the term biodegradable used by manufacturers and distributors can be somewhat misleading for the final consumer" https://www.beease.com.hk/post/how-long-does-pla-take-to-dec...
This is also misleading. PLA plastic degrades slowly in the environment because it's highly crystalline and mechanically robust. But once it's fragmented, it's rapidly degraded. So it doesn't contribute to persistent microplastics. It also does not take 80 years in normal environmnets.