11–15 of 15 posts
One thing to consider is that PET isn't the same as PETG, and may require changes when printing, and possibly additional ventilation
https://all3dp.com/2/pet-vs-petg-differences-simply-explaine...
If I lose 10 cents by turning a 500 ml bottle into filament, will I get at least 10 cents worth of filament out of it?
Problem is, I paid a refundable deposit on the bottles, as an incentive for returning them. If I lose 10 cents by turning a 500 ml bottle into filament, will I get at least 10 cents worth of filament out of it?
I have followed various open source projects to produce filament this way for a few years, starting from a facebook group. It is called "pultrusion". A key property of PET plastic is that it is not infinitely re-meltable, it gets more brittle each time. If you melt bottles to form filament, then melt it again when printing, those two re-melts are too much. But, you can heat it enough to soften it without truly meltin…
>it's really appealing because getting one more human use out of the vast volume of PET bottles that are thrown away seems really useful.
So where are all our old plastic bottles? Mostly, we're wearing them.
I have followed various open source projects to produce filament this way for a few years, starting from a facebook group. It is called "pultrusion". A key property of PET plastic is that it is not infinitely re-meltable, it gets more brittle each time. If you melt bottles to form filament, then melt it again when printing, those two re-melts are too much. But, you can heat it enough to soften it without truly meltin…
>it's really appealing because getting one more human use out of the vast volume of PET bottles that are thrown away seems really useful. As I understand it, most PET bottles are recycled by being spun into polyester. So where are all our old plastic bottles? Mostly, we're wearing them.
So sure, we get one more use out of that clothing, and then it gets put in a landfill or "donated" to west African countries that receive a year's supply of clothing every week.