【3DEVO】Everything you need to know about 3D printer filament recycling
As we head into 2025, with the development of living technology, plastic waste continues to enter landfills and water bodies, posing significant ecological challenges that could collapse the planet.
Every year, thousands of marine creatures die from plastic entanglement, and millions of people face the risk of ingesting plastic.
3D printing, which uses a lot of plastic, also exacerbates the plastic crisis. Improperly handled 3D printing waste can lead to the accumulation of microplastics in the ocean, posing a threat to ecology and human health.
This is a huge concern, especially considering that the global 3D printing materials market has only recently begun to grow.
That's why responsible 3D printing enthusiasts, manufacturers, and service providers are turning to green 3D printing, which includes reducing, reusing, and recycling excess plastic generated during the printing process.This material is said to take 10 to 1,000 years or more to decompose.
If users want to dispose of this waste properly, they need to understand its properties and how to treat it.
In this article, we will explore some strategies for reducing, reusing, and recycling 3D printing waste.
Minimizing 3D Printer Waste
The first step to addressing the plastic crisis is to minimize its use.
There are several ways to do this before you even start printing.
Reduce Supports
The first effective method is to try to eliminate the need for supports when designing models.
Designs with overhangs require supports because the printer needs material beneath the overhangs to add new layers.
To address this issue, you can design models that use more arches instead of 90-degree angles in your prints.
Another option is to consider if a different orientation helps avoid or reduce supports.
Fewer support materials mean less plastic waste.
This may not be applicable to all prints, especially when they are for functional end-uses.
However, it's still a good practice to keep the ecological impact of your print or manufactured design in mind during the design phase.
Minimize Bed Adhesion and Infill
Slicer settings are an important place where filament usage can be reduced.
If your model allows, a more environmentally friendly solution is to print with skirts instead of rafts.
Instead of creating a whole set of layers under the printed object, skirts create a single layer around the object, reducing filament consumption.
Skirts provide a certain degree of bed adhesion and are particularly suitable for problematic models that do not have sufficient contact with the print bed.
Depending on the equipment model, you can try increasing the number of lines or the width of the skirt, which will give you more contact area while maintaining a more sustainable printing method.
Sometimes, the ability to use skirts instead of rafts depends on a well-designed model and a well-calibrated printer. Of course, bed adhesives like glue also help.
Naturally, reducing infill will also decrease filament consumption, making it a good option for saving money.
It's often impossible to eliminate it entirely, but consider how low you can go. If you're modeling from scratch, consider making multi-part prints where higher infill is only used for sections that require strength.
Effective Part Splitting
The last thing to consider before printing is how many prints you place on the print bed at once.
As mentioned before, multi-part prints are a good practice. Splitting prints into smaller components can reduce wasted material if a print fails.
This method can save you a lot of time by avoiding painful print failures after several hours of progress.
If a design is particularly large and monolithic, it can be split by adding tabs and corresponding holes to connect the parts.
Spreading components across multiple prints can save filament, time, and money.
Reusing 3D Printing Waste with Recycled Filament
Printing with recycled filament is also a great way to reduce plastic consumption.
Today, consumers have a wide variety of recycled filaments to choose from, and they are also affordable.
As manufacturers strive to ensure the quality of raw materials, recycled filaments can be of the same or even better quality than ordinary filaments.
In addition to PLA and ABS, recycled filaments are also available in a variety of common and new materials.
Manufacturing Recycled Filament
Given the advantages of recycled filament, recycling waste print materials and regenerating them is a very beneficial act.
This process has several steps, and if done on a large scale, it can even become a very economical business model.
As you can imagine, you need specialized equipment to recycle 3D printing waste.
When recycling waste filament, the process has two main parts: shredding and extrusion.
The first part prepares the plastic to be melted, and then in the second part, the shredded plastic is melted and reshaped.
For the melted filament to have a consistent thickness and viscosity, the input plastic must have the same material properties, and the size of the shreds must be roughly the same.
During the extrusion process, the plastic passes through a hot end where it melts and is then pushed through a nozzle, which determines the diameter of the filament. Common filament diameters are 1.75 mm and 2.85 mm.
After the melted plastic solidifies, it must be wound. The process of placing the filament on a spool is quite important because it affects the consistency of the filament diameter.
The winder must pull at a steady speed to avoid stretching the filament while it is still pliable.
A good equipment setup is a necessary preparation for entering the 3D printing recycling process, and a complete product ecosystem is particularly important.
Purchasing equipment is a significant investment, so it's best to eliminate much of the guesswork involved in setting up and fine-tuning the process.
Therefore, choosing a shredder and extruder brand with the same ecosystem and trusted reputation is crucial.
This not only ensures that the equipment components are within the same ecosystem and standards, and have all been professionally tested and are ready for use.
At the same time, there are also a large number of original manufacturer guides and user communities surrounding these products, providing more knowledge to help you get started.
As we just mentioned, producing recycled filament requires specialized equipment: a shredder, an extruder, and preferably a winder.
Good related products will help you smoothly start recycling old 3D printing waste and regenerating it into useful resources.
Plastic Shredder
Shredding is a very important part of the entire process.
The most important thing is that the size of the granules it produces must be consistent.
Buying a shredder can be expensive, but it can also be a beneficial expenditure that can lead to better results in your 3D printing waste recycling efforts.
At the same time, this is also a good investment for our common future.
The 3Devo Plastic Shredder GP20 can recycle plastic of almost any shape and size into pellet-sized 3D printing material.
This dual design combines a smart plastic shredder with an integrated granulator, allowing you to focus on your needs.
The shredder's functionality gives you the freedom and flexibility to integrate it into any project in any industry.
Filament Maker
Next, you need a high-quality filament maker to achieve consistent diameter and shape.
And because it is the final step in filament recycling, you need to ensure that many equipment characteristics are excellent enough to deliver outstanding production quality.
The Filament Maker TWO has stable performance in this regard and can be trusted.
It is designed to provide consistent filament quality, making it a good choice for a filament extruder, and it also features a winder.
Its features include: high motor torque / optimized heating / improved compression ratio / more optimized L/D ratio.
It can mix various materials to create new filaments, achieving circular reuse and allowing your filaments to be used to their fullest while saving some costs, bringing filament manufacturing to new heights.
The Filament Maker TWO measures the filament from three sides, allowing the sensor to detect any ovality, ensuring the filament maintains a consistent circular shape.
This leads to higher quality and more reliable print results.
Its heat sensor accurately measures the temperature of the filament before it reaches the puller wheels. This allows for precise adjustments to prevent filament extrusion and ensure consistent filament quality.
For its related functions and characteristics, please refer to "Filament Maker Two Advances Custom 3D Printing Filament Production".
Utilizing Plastic Waste Recycling Services
Finally, perhaps we cannot invest more time and money at this stage, but we can still support green initiatives for 3D printing by using recycling services.
For example, by handing over waste plastic to people who can recycle it, these waste materials can become part of green recycling.
Therefore, if making recycled filament yourself is beyond your willingness, try sorting, storing, and recycling your print waste!
► 3Devo Filament Maker ONE Filament Maker Series
► 3Devo Filament Maker TWO Filament Maker Series
► 3Devo Plastic Shredder GP20
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