The city of Surprise, Arizona will serve as the pilot site for an environmental initiative that allows locals to 3D print functional products at no cost using plastic waste.
The initiative is the result of the QBE AcceliCITY Resilience Challenge, in which UK-based company Automedi won “City Solution of the Year”, receiving a $100,000 prize to fund its project. The pilot will run for six months.
During that time, three 3D printers will be rotated through various community locations, such as libraries and schools. The Surprise community will use the machines to create products it needs on demand, from materials including HDPE, PP, LDPE, PET, PLA, and ABS.
“We give communities an initial catalog of products, more to showcase what it can do, and a lot like some 3D printer manufacturers do these days,” Ethar Alali, Managing Director of Automedi, said in an interview with All3DP. “These are typically commodity items – things like coat hooks, clips, clamps, brackets, and functional items.”
Eventually, Alali hopes, the setup will become a marketplace alternative that will complement existing e-commercial platforms, with businesses and entrepreneurs globally distributing products through Automedi’s network.
For filament, the 3D printers will use plastic waste that the Surprise community collects through IoT-connected smart bins throughout the city. Technically, Alali said, all resin codes of plastic can be processed into something, whether it’s 3D printing waste or milk bottles.
“The first stage of any deployment is determining the characterization of waste and configuring the appropriate pathway to maximize throughput to filament,” Alali said. “Key drivers are always about how well the material processes without damaging the environment, as well as the costs and productivity associated with them.”
Once collected, the plastic is dry sorted and processed using a “basic mechanical recycling process like you might use with a grinder and a Filabot, but more industrialized,” according to Alali. “We also combine different types of the same plastic together to ensure a smoother filament.”
For more on Automedi and the Surprise, Arizona project, check out QBE’s press release. Additionally, an article by Government Technology offers some more details about the initiative.
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License: The text of "This Arizona Pilot Project Lets Locals 3D Print for Free with Recycled Plastics" by All3DP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.