Core77

please someone make this into a kickstarter project, I want one.

There is a guy doing this with fridge plastic, that makes chairs. He uses an old factory robot for the movement and a custom extruder and hopper.

I would almost forgive Exxon, Chevron, 3M, and Monsanto anything if they could build something like this.

This needs to be somebody's thesis project. No. This needs to be MANY peoples thesis project. After doing enough modeling, at certain point, it gets hard to even recycle the most basic of plastic goods. "This laundry detergent bottle has a nice finish, that could..." If I could make custom buttons for my thrift store jacket, or just replace the missing game pieces from boardgameX. Gotta make sure people don't try and make carabiners from milk cartons, but there's a thousand reasons to turn empty containers into objects at a home scale. Ventilation required.

It doesn't even need to be that complex. If a machine could just convert waste plastic into the thin plastic stock that is used in 3d printers, you'd have the closed circle you want.

Sums up what will no doubt be common place in future homes.

We want this nowww! Please make it happen!

This is genius

Saw this cartoon and had to comment! Check out this video (http://labcast.media.mit.edu/?p=213) and go to around 1:30. I am part of a research group called Mediated Matter out of the Media Lab and here is a prototype 3D printer that prints directly with used milk jugs.

Great cartoon, love it!

There's already a kickstarter underway for a plastic filament maker.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rocknail/filabot-plastic-filament-maker