Tearing down old things to make room for new things is an American tradition. It makes sense in some ways. After all, better building materials mean better buildings, right? Not if you like beautiful old buildings. There is, however, a compromise.
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In its heyday, plastic was viewed as a revolutionary advancement—safer and lighter than glass, cheap to manufacture, and useful in countless commercial applications. In fact, in the early 1960’s architects in the USSR even tried building entire houses out of the stuff.
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San Francisco wants to cut its landfill waste down to absolute zero by 2020. While a city-wide plastic bag ban has been in effect for a few years, new legislation approved by the Board of Supervisors this week sets its sights on the bane of tap-water enthusiasts and thirsty environmentalists alike: Bay Area, say goodbye to the plastic water bottle.
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It’s hard to be a bee these days, what with the sinister—and still mysterious—Colony Collapse Disorder decimating millions of hives over the past decade. But a few highly resourceful Canadian species have started adapting new nesting techniques, using plain old everyday plastic garbage to build their homes.
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Scientists have long been toiling to create artificial life, managing to produce man-made cell walls and even synthetic DNA. But now, a team of chemists has produced a functioning cell made from polymers.
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Call it whatever you want—the Wolverine plastic, the Terminator material, the Doctor Who ingredient—but this new regenerating polymer is amazing.
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As more 3D printers fire up and start chewing through plastic filament to extrude the objects of your dreams, more and more spools of PVC are going to be required to build our DIY future. And that means more plastic waste. Which, let’s face it, we have more than enough of already.
But perhaps there is a better way. U.K. charity techfortrade reckons there’s room to connect up the growing demand for 3D printing, with the surfeit of waste plastic in developing countries. The core aim: less waste and better jobs – that’s better jobs for humans, as well as more ethical 3D print jobs.
The tech-focused charity has today launched an initiative called The Ethical Filament Foundation which will aim to partner with organisations to encourage the manufacture of “ethically produced” 3D printing filament, made from recycled plastic waste – as an alternative to the standard virgin plastic spools.
The ethical element extends not just to feeding recycled waste plastic back in the 3D printer ecosystem, but to providing income stability for waste pickers in developing countries.
The Foundation is working to develop a standard for this ethical filament that can be used to certify producers, who will be able to license and display its accreditation mark. A draft of the Foundation’s guidelines can be be viewed on its website.
The Foundation notes:
This standard will ensure that social, economic and environmental requirements are met in the production of 3D printer filament. It is also hoped that this will contribute towards a general improvement in wider trading relationships with waste pickers by influencing plastic industry standards. The Ethical Filament Foundation mark will act as a quality guarantee for those companies and individual consumers wishing to purchase recycled filament.
The initiative is a welcome one – that could help instigate a wider shift in 3D printer practices. We’ve seen individual upcycling gizmos before, such as the Filabot, but as 3D printing moves from being the pastime of the maker community to something more mainstream it’s going to need more ambitious efforts to keep its dirty underbelly in check.
“After realising a gap in the market for 3D printer filament made from recycled plastic, we immediately recognised the opportunity this presents to the developing world where plastic waste is in abundance,” said William Hoyle, CEO of techfortrade, in a statement. ”The 3D printing market is growing exponentially and by making the first move into ethical filament, we hope to raise awareness about the importance of this technology and the benefits it can provide to some of the poorest people in the world. Our first step is to garner support from the 3D printing community.”
The Foundation has been founded by techfortrade in partnership with Dreambox Emergence which provides 3D printing units for community based manufacturing in Guatemala, and Michigan Technological University. Protoprint, which provides waste plastic recycling services in India – detailed in the below video – has signed up as the Foundation’s first licensed organisation.
3D printers are a dime-a-dozen these days, but every so often something special
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Samsung may well be the first company to actually deliver on the endless promise that flexible displays are on the way, with a limited edition Galaxy Note III with a plastic OLED screen said to be in production.
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We might not be able to build a liquid metal T-1000 killing machine yet, but we just took a huge step towards building a plastic one. Scientists have managed to develop a new polymer that—when cut in half—can heal all by itself. Pretty awesome trick.
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