The filament from Dutch company Refil is made up of recycled plastic from different sources.
Recycling Today reported on the Dutch startup company, which was formed by five Delft University of Technology alumni. Refil’s filament is called Refilament, and consists of plastic from car dashboards and PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles, which are “thoroughly cleaned and shredded into plastic flakes” before being “filtered to remove all contaminants”.
The plastic is then “melted and extruded” into 1.75 or 2.85 millimetre-thick filament, which is “wound onto cardboard spools” that are also 100 percent recycled and “can be recycled” again. The materials used are also REACH and ROHS-compliant, and are “the same price and quality as ordinary filaments”. They come in three colours including dashboard black, refrigerator white and PET transparent.
On presenting the filament at the 3D Printing Europe event, which took place on 28 April in Berlin, Germany, the company stated that “it took us about three years to develop our recycling process that transforms old plastic trash into usable new plastic filament”. The filament is currently only available from the company’s website – www.re-filament.com – but the entrepreneurs are “working to set up a reseller’s network”.