Start a Business Recycling Plastic with Precious Plastic's Open-source Plastic Sheet Press

1x1m Pressed Plastic Sheet made from
recycled, shredded plastic waste.
Photo: Precious Plastic website.

As much as plastic is bad for the planet it's also an extremely useful raw material for thousands of products. There in lies the problem. Plastic product waste.

Precious Plastics Foundation is based in the Netherlands and is a non-profit organisation that is working to solve the plastic problem by turning plastic waste into a valuable resource that anyone can harness with their open-source Plastic Sheet Press.

Using the press anyone can melt down shredded waste plastics and press it all into a plastic sheet that can be used as decorative abstract art (at its most basic level) or be used as a raw material to build new products from the sheets such as furniture, construction blocks, art sculptures, and more.

Below is a video from Precious Plastics documenting the development of the Plastic Sheet Press and how organisations and businesses worldwide are using it to recycle plastics that otherwise have just gone to landfill or found its way to being part of some environmental eyesore somewhere.

We finally found a way to turn plastic waste into sheets- The results are insane

Because the equipment is open-source you are free to download the plans to build them and start recycling your own plastics or, even start a business recycling plastics into plastic sheets. Precious Plastics even outlines everything you need to get started on their website.

While I wouldn't say the equipment is particularly cheap or easy to build (I honestly don't know how easy it is, I'm just going on appearances and the video above), it's relatively attainable if you're a 'maker-with-a-shed-full-of-tools' type, with a few thousand dollars to invest in a potentially profitable business where the raw material is almost literally garbage.

If you're not a maker type but still want to get involved you can buy ready made machines by other makers in your region, which helps support the community and gets you started with less barrier to entry.

If you think it's an amazing idea but not something you want to get quite so hands on with, you can support the movement and other makers by becoming a foundation member or making a donation. It's a great initiative with several case studies on the site demonstrating the impact the organisation is having simply by making their machines available to anyone who wants to build them.

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