The Plastic Bank is an organization designed to remove plastic waste from the world's oceans, beaches, and waterways while empowering people living in poverty to raise their standard of living.
This is achieved through "Plastic Banks," established strategically in impoverished areas with much plastic waste. The Plastic Bank is making plastic waste a currency in addition to offering people both education and the opportunity to trade plastics for access to 3D printing services & other life-improving opportunities.
A strong focus will be on educating and empowering local people to reveal value in themselves and to see the value in turning recyclable plastics into necessities and entrepreneurial opportunities. Additional efforts will go towards community collection projects that raise our host communities' overall standard of living.
Plastic Bank Extruder[edit | edit source]
The Plastic Bank has developed an industrial waste plastic/ocean plastic extruder and has provided all the plans as open hardware. For the entire bill of materials, assembly instructions, and guide to using go here.
See also[edit | edit source]
- Plastic Bank Extruder v1.0
- Recyclebot
- Evaluation of Potential Fair Trade Standards for an Ethical 3-D Printing Filament
- Life cycle analysis of distributed recycling of post-consumer high-density polyethylene for 3-D printing filament
- Mechanical Properties of Components Fabricated with Open-Source 3-D Printers Under Realistic Environmental Conditions
- Mechanical testing of polymer components made with the RepRap 3-D printer
- Development and feasibility of applications for the RepRap 3-D printer
- Life cycle analysis of distributed polymer recycling
- Solar powered distributed customized manufacturing
- Distributed recycling of the post-consumer plastic waste in rural areas
- Ethical Filament Foundation
- LDPE recycling on a bike with a RepRap from Taipei-based company Fabraft
- UBC recycling of old prints with blender and liquid nitrogen http://ubc-rapid.com/blog/?p=183