[Dave Hakkens] graduated from the Design Academy of Eindhoven and decided to try his hand at making affordable plastic recycling machines.
His reasoning?
"We recycle just 10% [of waste plastic]," says Hakkens. "I wondered why we recycle so little so I investigated it. I went to all these companies and I realized that they don't really want to use recycled plastic. So I wanted to make my own tools so I could use recycled plastic locally."
Typical plastic production, like injection molding, uses very large and expensive machines — so expensive that most of the time, companies don't want to risk using inferior recycled plastic, as it might damage the machine, or slow production time. Not convinced that recycled plastic is "inferior", [Dave] has built his own line of machines capable of making recycled plastic parts.
He's built his own rotary molder, a lever-operated injection molding machine, an extruder, and even a plastic shredder capable of taking in most scrap plastic. The results are quite impressive, and the machines are relatively simple to build. He's also decided to make the project open source to encourage others to help save the environment – He hasn't released the plans online just yet, but promises they will come soon! To see the machines in action, and to see what they're capable of, check out Hack a Day // visit site - Shared via feedly