Start Collaborating Boost Plastic Recycling
Precious Plastics
These DIY Machines Let Anyone Recycle Plastic Into New Products
Fast Company 10/30/17
The majority of the 300 million tons of plastic produced every year isn’t recycled, and recycling that does happen typically happens at an industrial scale in factories using equipment that can cost tens of thousands of dollars. But a growing number of designers are using a set of open-source, easy-to-build tools to recycle plastic and manufacture new plastic products on their own.
“We want to make small-scale plastic recycling accessible to everyone, as this can have an exponential effect on the amount of plastic recycled–eventually reducing the demand for new virgin plastic–and educate millions of people on plastic, plastic recycling, and how to handle it before it ends up in the environment,” says Dave Hakkens, the Dutch founder of Precious Plastic, an organization that designed the machines now in use by the designers in Thailand and the Ukraine, and more than 200 others.
One set of instructions explains how to build a low-cost machine that shreds plastic into flakes. Another modular machine extrudes plastic that can be used for 3D printing; an injection machine and a compression machine can form plastic into molds. A series of videos explain how to build the machines using basic materials and universal parts.
