PLA as a 3D printing material has some obvious advantages, but it’s important to recognize that this material isn’t perfect and has some drawbacks. Below, we’ve listed some of the benefits and disadvantages of this material.

Pros

• Easy to print: PLA is super easy to print with; almost all 3D printers can print this material, and it doesn’t need a heated bed. PLA requires relatively low temperatures compared to other printing materials, can be printed somewhat fast (around 60 mm/s), and doesn’t require an enclosure.
• Inexpensive: PLA is pretty cheap to buy compared to other, more specialized printing materials such as nylon or polycarbonate (PC), making it a great option for makers on a budget.
• Wide range of colors and options: PLA comes in many different forms, and manufacturers have made this filament in almost any color you can think of. Additionally, there are composite and special-purpose PLA filaments, such as carbon-fiber-infused PLA, glittery PLA, and even scented PLA.
• Eco-friendlier: PLA is derived from plant-based renewable resources and can be composted by industrial means. Further, studies have shown that the production of PLA consumes 65% less energy and produces substantially fewer greenhouse gases than are produced by conventional plastics.
• Non-toxic: PLA is non-toxic when it can be kept uncontaminated, expanding its applications to areas such as the medical and food industries.
• No fumes: Fumes are unavoidably released when thermoplastics are melted, and these fumes, especially from toxic materials such as ABS, can contain harmful inhalants and even carcinogens. While PLA can release some fumes, there is almost no odor and far less risk.

Cons

• Brittle and relatively weak: The most obvious disadvantage of PLA is its low flexural strength. 3D printed PLA parts are significantly weaker than injection-molded parts and even parts 3D printed in other materials, such as PETG and ABS. PLA parts also don’t usually bend; they snap very quickly after enough force is applied, meaning the material is very brittle.
• Low temperature and chemical resistances: On top of not being the strongest material out there, PLA isn’t very heat resistant, either. PLA has a low glass transition temperature, so parts printed in this material tend to deform under hot conditions, making PLA a less-ideal material for outdoor use. Additionally, certain chemicals cause PLA to release its raw chemicals, namely lactic acid, which can be harmful in high quantities.
• Not that biodegradable:  While many tout PLA’s biodegradability, practically speaking, it’s not. The conditions for it to degrade naturally in the environment are very rare. It’s more accurate to say that PLA is industrially compostable.

PLA is the most popular 3D printing material, but it has plenty of uses besides 3D printing:

• Food packaging: PLA is a non-toxic and theoretically food-safe material, making it a great plastic for food packaging because it won’t contaminate food. Even though PLA can react with certain chemicals and liquids, results have shown that it releases an insignificant amount of lactic acid. For example, NatureWorks, a bioplastic company, has successfully used PLA to make a food-safe food-packing component.
• Medical: Again, PLA’s non-toxic composition makes it useful in the medical and healthcare industry. PLA components have been used in bone fixation devices, such as binding screws and plates.
• Prototyping: Prototyping in PLA is typically done with 3D printing, and it’s a great way for businesses and individuals to bring an idea to life. That’s because PLA is super easy to print, inexpensive, and can be used with any FDM 3D printer.
• Structural applications: Despite its brittleness and low durability, PLA is commonly used in buildings, from carpet fibers to insulation foam. PLA can also be used for furnishing items that won’t be under physical stress.
• Textiles: PLA is also used to produce cloth and other textiles due to its breathability, low weight, and other properties. PLA certainly isn’t the most popular plastic in the textile industry, but it has potential, and it’s an eco-friendly alternative. An example of this use can be found in the Fibfab project, which has successfully tested PLA for use in casual and protective clothing.
• Cosmetics: The cosmetics industry is a huge contributor to plastic waste, and PLA is gaining popularity as a packaging alternative for its eco-friendliness and all-natural sources.

Now that you know the industries where PLA is most used, below are a few ways that PLA components are produced:

• 3D printing: FDM 3D printing is a very common way to produce parts in PLA. The material is very easy to print, and it doesn’t need high temperatures, a heated bed, or a direct drive extruder.
• Injection molding: Injection molding is the most popular method of manufacturing plastic parts, and it’s how most day-to-day plastic parts are made. While injection molding is typically used with ABS plastic to make parts such as Lego bricks or internal car parts (such as dashboards), this method can also work with PLA. However, PLA isn’t as commonly used for injection molding due to its low crystallization rate.
• Casting and more: Casting is very similar to injection molding but uses gravity instead of applied pressure to form a part. There are also other similar manufacturing methods for PLA, such as thermoforming. Like injection molding, these methods aren’t super popular for producing PLA parts, but are used in some industries.

Although we’ve already mentioned a few material properties, such as brittleness, PLA plastic has many other properties worth discussing:

• Strength: PLA isn’t a plastic known for its strength (that would be nylon or PC), but a PLA part’s strength is more dependent on how it was made than the material itself. For example, using a higher infill density and layer height would yield a stronger 3D printed part.
• Flexibility: PLA is a stiff plastic, meaning it has a low flexural strength compared to other plastics, especially flexible ones such as TPU. Additionally, as we’ve mentioned, PLA is brittle. Instead of bending, it usually snaps and breaks.
• Temperature resistance: PLA doesn’t require a heated bed to be printed, which means it can be used on budget machines. This is due to PLA’s low glass transition temperature, meaning that it deforms quickly under heat. This means you probably shouldn’t be using PLA parts outdoors or keeping them in direct sunlight, as they can easily become disfigured.
• UV resistance: PLA doesn’t handle the sun’s rays very well. Similar to when confronted with heat, PLA parts can deform when exposed to UV light for extended amounts of time.
• Chemical resistance: PLA isn’t soluble in solvents such as acetone or isopropyl alcohol and, overall, PLA plastic is a chemically resistant and stable material. However, you can still use more powerful solvents such as dichloromethane and mixtures like XTC3D to dissolve or layer-smooth PLA parts.

PLA is a material primarily meant for 3D printing, unlike other plastics such as ABS or polycarbonate which are predominantly used in other ways. Overall, PLA has a great printing performance, due to a few factors.

First, PLA doesn’t require a heated bed, enclosure, or direct drive extruder, so the equipment needed to print this material isn’t expensive, sometimes costing under $100. Materials such as ABS, PETG, and TPU all require at least one of these things to create quality prints.

Second, PLA is widely accessible, and the consumer 3D printing industry has grown enough that PLA filament is readily available online. It’s also pretty cheap, starting from around $20 per kilogram. Other filaments, such as PETG, costs a few extra dollars per kilogram, and there are fewer options.

Third, PLA is quite tolerant of varying print settings (within reason), so achieving a good print is pretty easy without a lengthy testing process to perfect slicer settings. Most default slicer profiles will leave you with a satisfactory model right off the bat, and just a little bit of adjustment can improve your prints even more. In contrast, ABS, PETG, and TPU are all sensitive to slicer settings, so your slicer profiles for these materials need to be delicately tuned to produce good prints.

Last, PLA can be printed more quickly than most other materials, and due to the desire for rapid prototyping, PLA is popular for quickly developing prototypes. No one wants to wait around for days until their first prototype is produced because, by then, they may have moved on to the next prototype!

Over the years, many unique types of PLA filament have emerged, giving the consumer many choices:

• Standard: First and foremost, standard PLA is the regular type of PLA prevalent in the 3D printing industry, with no unique or special features besides the basic properties of the PLA material.
• Plus: Plus and Pro are common terms in the filament business to describe a material that has been mixed with special additives to enhance its performance, usually concerning its strength. Pro PLA and PLA+ are great options if you want to print functional, real-world-use parts that will be subject to physical stresses but in a material that’s still easy to print.
• Wood: Wood PLA is a composite type of PLA that contains additives that give it a wood-like visual appearance, and this filament is useful for making want-to-be wood parts, like plaques.
• Silk: Silk PLA yields a super shiny, smooth, and silky finish to parts, making it a popular option for printing aesthetic pieces such as vases.
• Marble: Marble filament is another popular option, and real marble filaments contain small particles of marble to yield a marble-like, speckled finish. Other speckled filaments are also sometimes classified as marble PLA, even if they don’t contain real bits of marble.
• Glittery: Glittery or sparkly PLA is a fun one! This type of PLA has large glitter particles that are very visible, so you can have a printed part that sparkles.
• Carbon fiber-infused: This type of PLA is another composite and, as the name suggests, is a PLA filament infused with carbon fiber particles to increase the PLA’s strength and durability while maintaining most of its ease-of-use properties.
• Glow-in-the-dark: Glow-in-the-dark PLA is very popular and will luminesce in the dark due to special additives in the filament.
• Conductive: Conductive PLA is a type of filament that yields electrically conductive parts that you can use for low-magnitude electrical projects, like powering an LED using a 3D printed circuit.

Now that you know the pros, cons, and types of PLA, you may want a spool or two of your own! While many companies make claims about the quality of the filament, a few are known for their reputation and consistent quality from spool to spool. Below is a list of some quality brands of PLA filament:

• Hatchbox: Hatchbox is a small 3D printing filament manufacturer that sells quality filaments in basic colors at an affordable price (around $20 per kg), including a well-reviewed PLA.
• Prusament: Prusament is Prusa Research‘s filament sector, and they make an assortment of materials, including PLA, which they offer in basic and shiny colors.
• Protopasta: While it might cost a good deal more than most brands, Protopasta is one of the most unique PLA filament brands out there. From glittery and sparkly to coffee-scented and carbon-fiber-infused, Protopasta has got you covered.
• Polymaker: Polymaker sells a few different types of PLA in basic colors. These include PolyLite, their standard option, PolyMax, an impact-resistant filament, PolyTerra, their eco-friendly choice, and composites like PolyWood.
• MatterHackers: MatterHackers is a popular online retailer of 3D printing supplies for a variety of brands, and they also make their own set of filaments, including their Build Series PLA and their Pro Series PLA. MatterHackers also offers other types of PLA like silky options and glow-in-the-dark PLA.
• Fillamentum: Fillamentum is another higher-end filament manufacturer, and their PLA filaments are some of the best out there, known for their unique colors (e.g. crystal clear) and great printing performance.

As we’ve mentioned, PLA plastic is sourced from plants such as corn instead of harmful materials like crude oil, which most other plastics are made from. This means PLA is a sustainable material for the most part, as plants are relatively renewable.

PLA is also technically biodegradable, but it takes a long time, even in an ideal environment, for PLA plastic parts to degrade. One study found that in a controlled composting environment, with heat and decomposing organisms to expedite the process, PLA plastic took three months to break down.

It would take even longer than three months for PLA to decompose in natural, uncontrolled conditions. So, it’s not like you can just toss all your old 3DBenchys in the composter or on the ground. Instead, it’s best to send PLA parts to a special facility meant for composting bioplastics.

The plants required to produce PLA are important as a food source, and some could argue that it’s not in the planet’s best interest to use these limited crops to make plastic over food. Perhaps in the future, PLA might be seen as an unsustainable material, if crop yields aren’t high enough to satisfy the need for both plastic and food.

Overall, while PLA is technically a sustainable material, it has some limitations. Still, PLA is a bioplastic and is more sustainable than other plastics, such as ABS, which rely totally on non-renewable resources and don’t decompose (or not nearly as quickly).

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle?

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Lastly, it’s important to discuss the toxicity and food safety of PLA plastic, as this is a key consideration of using any material. PLA is a non-toxic material and can theoretically be used for producing food-safe items, unlike other 3D printing plastics such as ABS. However, many other factors contribute to the food safety of PLA, especially if it’s a 3D printed part.

Just because a material is non-toxic doesn’t mean it’s safe to come in contact with food. For example, FDM 3D printing creates parts layer-by-layer, and there are tiny gaps between these layers. These gaps can trap foreign particles, potentially contaminating the part and making it no longer food safe. Before this can even happen, though, PLA filament is fed through an extruder, tube, hot end, and nozzle, all locations where other, potentially unsafe, materials come into contact with the PLA.

With this in mind, it’s important to remember that while pure PLA plastic is non-toxic and food safe, other materials and particles can affect the safety of the finished part. We recommend consulting our guide to printing food-safe parts before attempting to print anything that will come into contact with food.