It would be really good to know if Formlabs are looking into any recycling solutions for their products. They say that cartridges and tanks can all be disposed of as household waste, but then how many must now be sat in landfill across the globe?
The base structure of the cartridge is Polypropylene which can be recycled, but because its black it can’t be picked up by the near infrared optical sorting, as a result we cannot send it with our recycling. I appreciate that because the resins are light sensitive that restricts options for the cartridge material, but surely the base doesn’t need to be? Is anyone even looking into this?
We’re really pleased with our printers and results, but I can’t help feeling this is the one area that Formlabs really drops the ball.
It would be helpful to the environment if Formlabs designed their tanks to be able to be refurbished. Officially. And ideally by the user.
The do it with their Form2 printer.
Logistics are tricky, but for example, they could offer to do it per batch of 5 trays at once.
It would be really nice to see some commitment on a mission statement level (every other company on earth as well, actually ) on how they do their very best to preserve the planet.
Some things could be accomplished straight away. I mean: Do yo need a new tray containment box with every new tray?
Yes logistics are tricky, and sometimes what appears to be a greener solution can actually be worse, but if that were the case then just be honest and explain the situation. The fact that we hear nothing makes me believe that nothing is being tried or tested, or even discussed.
Surely it would be in their interests to be proactive on this, both from a PR/ marketing standpoint, but also to generate a solution that could potentially reduce manufacturing costs?
It has been a year when the latest post in this threat was placed.
Is there any update from Formlabs on this topic?
I understand the hassles you might face but nowadays you really have to take responsibility on this as a company providing so many consumables to your customers.
I also don’t have a quick solution for the problem but there are so many innovative ideas ongoing on this topic that I’m having trouble to believe something can be done.
Thank you for getting in touch and for bumping this thread. I agree that sustainability and recycling solutions should be a high priority. I’ve gone ahead and submitted further product feedback regarding this topic and provided a reference to this thread.
some thing definitely need to done about recycling as I have about 70 empty resin cartridges looking like they are all going in the bin . was hoping formlabs would have sorted this by now
Thank you for following up. This is definitely on our radar, with solutions such as the High Volume Resin System for example. This is mostly geared towards higher throughput users who would otherwise use up a large number of cartridges.
thanks for your reply.
is it not possible to do a return and reuse as they are a solid bit of plastic.
mat be encouraged uses to return them and then create a credit system to reward them .
credits could got to buying more resin
) on how they do their very best to preserve the planet.