The attention that has been paid on plastic pollution over the course of the past few years has grown incredibly. Nevertheless, for every article talking about means and ways to recycle and reuse the least bio-degradable material of all, there are about three times as many pieces screaming about the devastating impact of plastic pollution. But it always comes down to us, the individuals and the important not-yet-rhetorical question still remains- when you have an empty plastic bottle in your hand, what is the first thing that comes to your mind to do with it?
Assuming that you have just a bit of sense, you would opt for either placing it in the recycling container, leave it next to the kitchen sink and reuse it for watering the plants, or simply find another use, like turn it into a plant pot, or a house. But the company 3D Systems, together with the teenage music guru Will.i.am and The Coca-Cola Company, came up with a better solution for you. They designed the EKOCYCLE Cube 3D Printer, the first ever 3D printer that converts used plastic bottles into pretty much anything you like.
The invention was introduced a few days ago (see the video here) and it is pretty remarkable. Being set to launch by the end of this year, Ekocycle Cube 3D Printer will provide you with the incredible opportunity to recycle plastic bottles at home, allowing you to turn them into your own personalized super cool smartphone cover for example, while at the same time helping you pay the deserved respect to our precious environment. The printer will use filament cartridges that are just as durable and as flexible as any standard ones, only that these will contain at least three recycled PET plastic bottles.
The product will appear on Cubify and will be sold at the reasonable price of $1,200. It will be initially available in four colors- red, white, black and natural.
It is great to see how many green supporters encourage countless initiatives to raise awareness as well as promote appropriate disposal and limited use of plastics. The best part of it all is that the people behind the programs are not only the environmentalists. More and more famous fashion and music icons promote clean and eco-friendly living, ensuring the success of countless green initiatives.
This can only give us hope that not all is lost, and it is never too late to make a change.
Image (c) designboom
the only thing that could make this better is being able to feed a clean plastic bottle into the back of this, and print something out of that.