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by atonse 8 days ago
The only comforting thing to me about the waste (apart from the fact that our personal 3d printer waste is a margin of error compared to industrial waste so honestly, just don’t worry about it), is that at least PLA is biodegradable.
1 comments
ofrzeta 8 days ago
"the term biodegradable used by manufacturers and distributors can be somewhat misleading for the final consumer" https://www.beease.com.hk/post/how-long-does-pla-take-to-dec...
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cyberax 8 days ago
This is also misleading. PLA plastic degrades slowly in the environment because it's highly crystalline and mechanically robust.

But once it's fragmented, it's rapidly degraded. So it doesn't contribute to persistent microplastics.

It also does not take 80 years in normal environmnets.

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ofrzeta 8 days ago
Well, my source (quoting some "Federal Environment Agency") says it does contribute to microplastics. Some googling seems to confirm this.
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cyberax 8 days ago
It depends on what you mean by "contribute". Multiple studies put half-life of PLA microplastics at a range between weeks to a month (e.g. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02697... ), so they can't create a persistent hazard.
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vablings 7 days ago
It is likely a fraction of a fraction of an already small fraction. Textiles, tires and food packaging are the biggest contributors. It has yet to be proven that microplastics are directly linked to any harm, it is mostly unknown.

If you care about that kind of stuff the best thing you could do is stop driving.

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atonse 8 days ago
Interesting. I will do more research on this, thanks. But at the end of the day, even though it's tough for us to see the PLA poop, etc from our prints (I still generally don't like it), my point is that hobbyist plastic waste is basically negligible and making nearly zero difference.

I don't want people to see plastic waste from 3D printing and be discouraged to try it out as a hobby. I just got my first 3d printer 6 months ago (and I did all this biodegradable research mostly so my wife would feel comfortable with it). But the benefits of rewiring your brain in a manufacturing mindset, having the ability to create things, solve custom problems, etc, far outweigh the negligible (in the grand scheme of things) amount of waste compared to all the other plastic shit (toys, etc) the masses buy on amazon. That was my main point.

But it's good to know that it could still take 80 years, and is not as quickly biodegradable as originally thought.

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drupe 8 days ago
Have you tried PHA? Supposedly it's truly biodegradable and a viable alternative to PLA in many cases.
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