Is there a viable method or company to recycle failed prints or prototypes? I’ve been keeping all of my PETG stuff in a box, still a way to go before it’s full but was curious if anyone had any experience here whether it be something diy or shipping them to a company.
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I don’t think there are any USA-based companies or programs that are truly worth it. I feel like the extra carbon burned to ship the scraps to the ones that do exist does more harm to the planet than whatever we may gain from recycling the plastic.
And also the companies that sell recycled spools of plastic aren’t selling them for less than the price of virgin material, and those rolls will be a mishmash of plastics that aren’t the same quality. I can’t imagine that they will print well enough to do much other than prototype something with them.
It’s a shame, and I wish things were different. Your best bet is to recycle it at home, but that’s not cheap. Stefan at CNC Kitchen talks about and demonstrates this in his videos: https://www.cnckitchen.com/blog/recycling-old-3d-prints-into-new-filament
Add:north has a recycling program for PLA, but there’s a minimum of 5kg material + 5 filament spools. They also only accept their own PLA and there’s a large warning on the site that you can sabotage the recycling process if you mix in material from other manufacturers, since they will likely have different additives.
There’s also some more generic info which implies that you shouldn’t put PLA in the general plastics recycling (at least not in Sweden) since they can’t take care of it, and that PLA can contaminate other polymers that the recycling plant could otherwise handle.