Have you ever heard of PLAST’IF?
Their motto is, what if plastic is the solution.
How does that work you wonder? Fair enough, that is exactly what I thought at first too.
These guys are thinking around the corner and the empty plastic bottle gets turned into something useful right in front of your eyes.
How does it work?
The idea is simple. Bring your empty plastic bottle and turn it into a useful object again.
These 5 entrepreneurs have developed a machine small enough to put in your office. It collects and separates your plastic trash and turns it into a 3D printable liquid.
Note it only takes plastic 1, 5 and 6.
Then you just tell the machine what you want and voila, it turns your empty plastic bottle into a useful item again. The numbers are endless.
So far there is a touchscreen with a catalog of items to print, but if you want something that isn’t listed you can simply request it and the guys from Plast’if will add it to the catalog.
This is what they state on their homepage at plastif.com
Recycle your plastic waste,
into useful objects,
transform it
and let’s change mentalities,
together.
Their goal is simple: Raise awareness for the necessity to recycle and focus on the positive impact we can create and create a more sustainable world one step at a time.
The Why
In France, each person creates an average of 600 kg of rubbish per year and that is only France. According to Eurostat, the average person in the rest of the EU creates almost half a ton of rubbish per year. That is way too much and yes we are all guilty of this.
Here some numbers for the analytic thinkers and some images because we all like images.
We all know that our world oceans are at risk, nearly every marine animal is ingesting microplastic and it ends up on our plate.
Read are we eating our clothes? here.
Recycling, for the most part, doesn’t work. The numbers are shocking. By 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish (by weight).
Taking your empty plastic bottles and 3D printing them into something you use for longer is a good step in the right direction, although I think we need to change how we consume and become more aware how bad most plastics actually are to our health.
What can you print with the Plast’if machine?
The machine only accepts plastics 1, 5 and 6. Which are also known as PET, PP, and PS.
The possibilities are endless and you can keep adding new items to their catalog.
Where can I buy the Plast’if machine?
You can order them from their website so far and until now you won’t be able to buy it for your personal home. They are only meant for businesses.
If you want to find out more you can mail to [email protected]
You can also follow them on Twitter.
And before you go let me know what you think about this or perhaps you know of other cool companies that have developed interesting solutions to the plastic problem. I would love to hear about them.
