A new pilot initiative to reduce the University's plastic waste will recycle plastic PET bottles into 3D printing filament. The programme, led by Dr Andre M Chagas (School of Life Science & lead at the Open Research Technologies Hub at the Library) and Dr Zahid Pranjol (School of Life Sciences), will involve a team of students coming from different disciplines in Sussex who will leverage existing open-source projects available online.

The initial research points to over 20 filament 3D printers on campus that could be using recycled filament. This pilot programme will help to minimise plastic bottle waste on campus and decrease the carbon footprint of buying new filament at the same time. In the long run, the organisers want this project to expand to be able to recycle more types of plastics into more types of products and outcomes. 

Plastic waste is a huge problem being found everywhere on earth, including samples in rainwater, in blood samples from animals and humans and even in human placenta. Plastic production is estimated to contribute to about 4.5% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per year, with the majority of the emissions being generated at the production stage (incineration or recycling only accounts for about 6% of the total plastic production emissions). To curb plastics' GHG emissions and to make better use of this non-renewable resource, it is paramount to invest in initiatives that collect plastic close to the point where the waste is generated and find new uses for it, either directly repurposing it, or via recycling, where used materials are transformed into something new.

Plastic recycling has been traditionally done in large central units, far away from where the waste is generated and collected, leading to an increase in the waste carbon footprint, as it needs to be transported (adding to GHG emissions). Moreover, in this system all types of plastic get mixed together and need re-sorting before recycling. Companies responsible for these types of service have had cases where the waste received was not recyclable, due to impurities, unrecognizable plastic type and other issues. In fact, a recent report has stated that recycling plastic in this way is practically impossible. One alternative to this method is to build smaller, distributed recycling stations, that can take care of specific types of plastics generated in each location. This allows for dedicated machines to be built, personnel to be trained for the exact local needs and for the generation of products and economical value interesting for each community.

Raising to the challenge of local recycling, several projects have been created, and include (but are not limited to) initiatives to recycle fishnets and plastic bottles. The most prominent of these projects is Precious Plastics, an open source initiative providing two main aspects:

1. a library of instructions on how to build machines for shredding, melting and forming plastics of all sorts, and
2. it hosts and fosters a community of like-minded individuals who share their own knowledge and experiences. Members of this community can sell and buy products from one another, all the way from recycled plastic products to the machines used for recycling.

By providing know-how and a place for the community to interact, Precious Plastics has decentralised recycling, and empowered communities to adapt the concept to their own realities and challenges.

Following the University’s Sustainability strategy objective to be net zero by 2035 and to recycle 50% of its waste by 2025, the University’s pilot program Precious Bottles aims to recycle plastic PET bottles into 3D printing filament, which will be used at the many available printers at Sussex and help tackle two issues at once:

1. it will decrease the amount of plastic that needs to be transported far away for recycling,
2. decrease the amount of plastic filament bought by the many different projects running at the university. 

The students participating in the programme will use online resources, such as the one provided by Precious Plastics, to run the project, study its impact, and transform its output into a commercially viable enterprise.

 If you are interested in environmental issues and you would like to take part in this project, email Andre M Chagas at a.maia-chagas@sussex.ac.uk and Zahid Pranjol at z.pranjol@sussex.ac.uk.