Create jobs while preserving nature. This is the ambition of Precious Plastic, which has developed a series of machines to recycle plastic and whose plans are broadcast free on the net. The creator of such machines is Dutch designer Dave Hakkens.
Every year, humanity produces more than 300 million tons of plastic, of which only 10% is recycled. The rest ends up in landfills, incinerated, or worse, in nature. To fight against this pollution, Dave Hakkens had an idea: design machines which transform plastic waste into useful items and distribute his plans freely on the net. “It is amazing to find so many plastic in nature. It is a material that has value and that can be easily reused,” said Dave Hakkens.
Indeed, one must still have the right tools on hand. Machines exist, certainly, but are very expensive and highly technical and were previously only available to industry. “The main challenge was to design machines that everyone can build with materials recovered where he stays. And this, without any technical expertise or complex tool,” says the designer.
After three years of research and with the help of many volunteers, Dave Hakkens presented last spring the final models of Precious Plastic. The series consists of four machines: a mill, an extruder, an injection moulding machine and a compression press.
The machines are successively for crushing the plastic small chips before reuse, either in the form of filament usable by a 3D printer (through the extruder) or directly in a moulded object with different presses.
“You can get free plastic all around you. Just bend down or ask your neighbours,” said Dave Hakkens. Once transformed into an object, the material begins a new life. It can even bring some money on the resale and so, in the spirit of the designer, constitute a business to thousands of people.
How much does it cost to build the workshop of the perfect recycler? “Each machine costs between nothing to 180 Euros, depending on whether or not you use recycled materials to build it,” says Dave Hakkens. Its plans and tutorials to build them are free to download on its website.
“My dream is that these plans go around the world and that everywhere recycling workshops are opening,” says the designer.
