While we market ourselves as your local 3D printing shop, we are so much more. You can catch Brian or Jane tinkering and researching for ways to reduce our waste more effectively. Whether its through using the scraps of 3D printed parts or plastic bottles out of the recycling bin, our goal is to help and educate consumers to do their part to lessen their ecological footprint while striving to make that change at production levels.

We also invite you to join us at Marker’s Faire Orlando. There we showcase our latest designs for the upcycling machines that transform 2L plastic bottles into useable 3D printing filament. The positive engagements we’ve received at previous showings makes us hopeful the others in the community are seeing the problems associated with the amount of waste that can be accumulated through this hobby.

Follow us on our journey as we continue to develop more economical viable to produce this type of filament for all to use. For the past two years we have been lucky enough to sponsor a Senior Design team at the University of North Florida’s Engineering department. Your support, reach, and business helps provide monetary support for these students to put their engineering prowess to use and help us pave the way as sustainable engineers, 3D printing hobbyists, and responsible consumers.

About the “Upcycling” Process

Upcycling is the process of transforming waste materials, unwanted products, or useless items into new products of higher quality or value. Unlike recycling, which involves breaking down materials to create new ones, upcycling focuses on reusing existing materials creatively and innovatively. Our current focus is transforming 2L plastic soda bottles into 3D printer filament.

1. Collection and Cleaning: First, the plastic bottles are collected and cleaned thoroughly to remove any labels, adhesives, or contaminants. Clean plastic ensures a higher quality end product.
2. Prepping: The cleaned plastic bottles are then cut into ribbons. These ribbons can be used in a number of ways from weaving, crocheting and even 3D printing!
3. Extrusion: The plastic ribbon is then fed into an extrusion machine. This machine heats the plastic at a controlled temperature and forces it through a small opening to create a continuous filament strand. The diameter of the filament is carefully monitored to ensure consistency, as different 3D printers require specific filament sizes.
4. Spooling and Drying: After the extruded filament has down cooled down, it is wound onto spools. These spools are the familiar form of 3D printer filament that can be loaded into a 3D printer for printing. The nature of the plastic material unfortunately retains a lot of moisture which can only be combated by drying the filament before being used by the printer.
5. Splicing: Each bottle produces about 10 meters of printer filament, but printers generally require spools 300 meters long. While there is currently no reliable method, slicing the newly formed 3D printing filament to create a continuous strand is necessary for this filament to be considered economically viable.