26 Reply by Charles_Xavier

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Re: New Brand and Supply Company

Tim Elmore and others are way more knowledgeable about this than I am, but my understanding is that the molecular make up of recycled PLA (or almost any) plastic is different  from that of the virgin grade. I believe the melting process shortens the polymeric chains? So, while you could do it, and make filament from it, it would not be the same as before. Not to mention to process of grinding the PLA to be recycled is non-trivial. I think this is one of the main reasons that everyone currently uses their Filastruder and other at-home extrusion systems only with virgin pellets. But again, I hope someone with more information than me chimes in.

27 Reply by Nimikin

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Re: New Brand and Supply Company

Also cheap excess spools for the filastruder guys might be nice wink

28 Reply by SupplyGuy

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Re: New Brand and Supply Company

Howdy y'all!  Staying busy and hope you are too!  Get bored and I would love for you to stop by and drop a "like".  If not... that's cool too!

https://www.facebook.com/3dfilamentscom

29 Reply by SupplyGuy (edited by SupplyGuy 2013-08-15 05:15:48)

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Re: New Brand and Supply Company

So what is a plausible, if any, recycling solution... even if not for reuse?  Of course, that could pay for itself... unfortunately.

30 Reply by Charles_Xavier

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Re: New Brand and Supply Company

It is a problem of scale and resource distribution. It simply isn't feasible for each individual user to recycle their own material; there's not enough of it and the process/equipment aren't cheap or forgiving.

The entity most able to recycle filament is the supplier (or manufacturer, if you want to take one step back), since they have access to virgin material and can process it with used material. But all of the used material is on the consumer's side, and to ship that used material back to the supplier is almost certainly more expensive than the virgin material is in the first place, or at the very least not cost-effective.

I mean, if quality wasn't an issue or if the range of quality for acceptable 3D printing material was wider, Makerspaces could collectively recycle their members' plastics together, but I'm skeptical they'd get far without the proper quality control that a filament supplier could provide.

31 Reply by Tomek

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Re: New Brand and Supply Company

Recycled filament is why black filament is often crap - it has bits and pieces from previous extrusions of other colors. 



Ideally speaking we'd use high temperature furnaces to burn plastics after their use, in any place that we currently use virgin oil.  The problem is that there are no or few regulations for colorants on the labeling of plastic bottles and in non-food plastics. Technically speaking coca cola could be using a cobalt oxide for their red logo, and it would be legal and not disclosed, so you would be in a bad position to be burning tons of it.

32 Reply by Stevos758

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Re: New Brand and Supply Company

Any word on when the site will be up?

Website - http://rippsgaragetech.com/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ripps-Ga … 3131469591
E3D V6 Bulldog XL mounts! http://www.filastruder.com/products/e3dv6-bulldog-mount

33 Reply by Stevos758

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Re: New Brand and Supply Company

Never mind. It's loading. Very slow and took a few tries.

Website - http://rippsgaragetech.com/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ripps-Ga … 3131469591
E3D V6 Bulldog XL mounts! http://www.filastruder.com/products/e3dv6-bulldog-mount