🧵 View Thread
🧵 Thread (87 tweets)
Been thinking a lot about recycling methods for plastic as I am going to be buying enough plastic that I should be able to 3d print a solid version of @nsreed A weird unintentional tradition with us at @PraetorLabs is making clones of him out of stuff when he's not around.
Got to thinking about recycling methods and alternate sources of building material. Reminded me about a thread I made on robotic recycling.https://t.co/C9lfIS3WoK
PET stands for 'Polyethylene terephthalate'.https://t.co/Qle7UHiYHk
You can usually identify if a product is made with PET/PETE by it's "Resin Identification Code".It is marked by a little '1' inside of that recycling symbol you see on most consumer drink bottles.♻️https://t.co/GI1Ay35OeU
One of the cool things about PET is that it's actually pretty darn recyclable! And it's a good thing too as most of consumers one-time-use plastics are made of PET.https://t.co/TKdDG4g7A7
It's fairly trivial to 'physically' recycle PET without resorting to chemical depolymerization.One of the simplest is to refill a clean bottle with water or some other beverage.They make for great alternatives for indoor lighting (and are everywhere) https://t.co/TLj6lQc57c
I do not personally use them for dinking water. I found out that due to IBD having impaired gut barrier function, it seems likely that I would be getting an alarmingly high dose of microplastics.https://t.co/c0FTc5ezPZ
One of the things I would love to figure out how to quantify microplastics in my own blood. There doesn't seem to be much research on this. Apparently the study here was on of the first to try to quantify it?https://t.co/wvZkQs88h0
Sure hope these chemicals likely in my blood aren't endocrine disruptors. Sure would be kinda bad if that was the case.https://t.co/0YCd4NeYxC
I have been trying my best to remove sources of potential plastic from my diet, but it is probably one of the hardest things I've ever done. And I am already fairly low waste.The stuff is especially bad from heating plastics.https://t.co/Kr5DkfWp2Uhttps://t.co/HD3brAeViD
That PETE one is the one I am trying the most to avoid as per that study.> In total, 15 types of MPs were detected in feces, with poly(ethylene terephthalate) (22.3–34.0%) and polyamide (8.9–12.4%) being dominanthttps://t.co/3xOVssHEL5
It is funny to me that I wanna use the very plastic that might be causing male fertility issues to build a device to detect stuff to help uncover causes of male fertility issues.https://t.co/PA9oSkJYqDhttps://t.co/XD2VVfmEKNLife is funny sometimes.
“We’ve identified there are microplastics in the air we breathe. We’ve found microplastics in the lungs. The next step is — so what? Does it matter that there’s plastic in the lungs?”https://t.co/SP20vRFSrfSo what?
So what? We don't even know if this is a problem?I'm not sure about you, but I'd rather not be breathing in plastics and other VOCs. I'm sure it's fine if you have healthy mucus production system, but not all of us are that lucky m8.https://t.co/wQUJvv6I65
We spent some time over the weekend to 'Jugaad' together a negative pressure vent for 3d printer. With my GF having lung issues and my own weird mucus problems, this is needed to avoid breathing concentrated VOCs during long prints.@nsreed is calling it a "Trash manifold". https://t.co/VeOW9rP7zI
PET being recyclable is really cool. It means its possible to reach nearly 100% reusable packaging. This is something that Coca Cola has been pioneering."rPET" means it is made from recycled PETE.https://t.co/h8yYa19pxk
I've been learning about how PET flows thru the ecosystem. One of the major problems with our throw-away society is that before these initiatives, rPET was mostly a cost savings measure to compensate for low OIL. It was often cheaper to produce new plastic than to use recycled!
"manufacture of plastic is both energy-intense and emissions-intensive in its own right, producing significant emissions through the cracking of alkanes into olefins, the [process of turning] olefins into plastic resins, and other chemical refining" https://t.co/pZJrTCl94j
Something I care a lot about is 'circular' economies. The idea that plastic trash can be recycled and looped thru the system as new feedstock and reused is a fascinating one. So it bothers me a bit that the the main thing driving a large part of carbon emissions is price signals.
I think about these things under a 'complex systems' lens. So like food webs within an ecosystem; loops that impact other loops in complex and sometimes unintuitive ways. The classic predator prey balance is an example, but I prefer one involving dishes.https://t.co/HkiJWHOGXL
About a month ago, @Mr3000 followed me at about the same time as I was doing some of the research into 3d printing plastic recycling.The company he's working on caught my eye. I'm always on the look out for novel ways to make reusable filament.https://t.co/CQEfMTLzTN
Growing crickets on poop eating mushrooms. Then turning said crickets into biopulp (food?) & chitin, that later can can then be combined with cellulose to make plastic. https://t.co/mZMNl6NqSkThe question I would need to answer is can this be turned into a filament?
My first instinct with many of these companies is that they are just green-washing. So I had given him some shit about soil pollution. But I went on to explore their company and what they were doing. This is is how I learned about the Coca Cola thing!
It turns out @OriginMaterials figured out a way to take a different waste stream (wood pulp) and convert it into PET. Chemistry is over my head, but it looks like they're using an acid to break it apart to produce carbon materials without as much energy.https://t.co/OA05x6nEQO
Something that has been particularly gnawing at me, and something that I brought up in DMs: how so much of this microplastics are invading the food web.There's a lot going on here as this space is huge: https://t.co/H6qeAfQj8u
I am happy to learn there are orgs are working on ways to reduce the carbon impact of PET, and I'm the last person to poo-poo a company that is working on circular economies. But at the same time I am highly alarmed by how much we just don't know about PET's impact on health.
And these feelings mirror my own anxiety about not knowing what consequences I might face if I bring large quantities of plastic production into my living environment, and worries about the hidden costs of contributing to potentially harmful plastic production supply chains.
I'd been suffering so bad with issues that I ate freaking dog shit to fix my gut! I don't want to risk undoing my health gains for a couple of 3d prints.Funny thing is we don't really know what this stuff dose to our gut! This paper was from January:https://t.co/CBnGEZKAEu
Its one thing to want to reduce impact on the environment. But an entirely different calculation occurs if we see plastic as directly harmful.Part of my explorations here is for harm reduction. I think working on Project Viril is worth doing, but I also wanna mitigate damage.
When I want to do something, I go hard.https://t.co/TQl1rGY8TN
I found a food safe biodegradable bio-plastic disposable glove so I can handle my own fecal waste and do it Sustainably.Realized I can probably shit in freezer safe canning jars if I can't find a low-temp capable bio-plastic storage medium.Caveathttps://t.co/68wf86mwLR
The impetus for this thread is that in a few days I will finally have full access to grant funds (yay I have a bank!). Figuring out the plastic concern is the last major hurdle in my own mental hang-ups here.It also helps me promote what we're doing. https://t.co/Au2E6qjCFf
Something that caught my eye here and is related to plastic was in trying to figure out why pressure cooking an aluminum can would allow us to strip off the ink.https://t.co/wGFag1iDvC
Turns out aluminum cans are literally coated in plastics! I can't even drink energy drinks without getting plastics in me.https://t.co/3cb6Q4RtPa
I have a problem, lol.(Been accumulating cans and bottles to see if we can actually make a microscope from scratch.) https://t.co/VMogeNkgN4
The water pottles are also PET plastics (more on that in a moment).The GF uses them to stay hydrated (this helps with Type II diabetes issues).https://t.co/3RbLeQFMZ0
IIRC many problems we see in Diabetes is caused by uric acid crystals building up... Flushing it might help. But why is it there to begin with? Maybe celery is acting on gut microbes in similar way as why it makes nitrates for meat preservation? Hmmhttps://t.co/QoZOL5f1oB
I 've been using a glass one I found on clearance from Aldi's. Haven't figured out a good way to clean it. (looks like this https://t.co/e0yU9sQROe )
We've also been using a @AdagioTeas high-flow rate filter. It is also made of plastic (acrylic?)... but we keep it out the sun and only use cold water in it.Would love an all glass one w/ refillable filters. (I'd just buy the carbon filter balls in bulk)https://t.co/YKtyXt87qj
In this case, I am more concerned about PFAS in the water as we live near a airforce base and have no idea what is in the water table. https://t.co/38nNgoAfqY
So like the other aspects of this thread, Compromising on that filter was done because a lot of factoring around cost/benefit analysis on mitigating on problem by ramping up another.This is the nature of living in a funny world where systems interact in (often annoying) ways.
That idea leads back into some thinking on recycling PET and it's use in 3d printing.Something that I've been doing is keeping all the waste filament in hopes of eventually making news stuff out of it. https://t.co/Hi00ZpCt9j
There are practical applications here of course (cost savings), but also harkens back to the idea of a circular economy. Nothing would please me more than knowing that designs can be recycled into new ones if the problem we are trying to solve goes away.
We've had this idea early on during @praetorlabs lifecycle.Contemplating ways of turning garbage into usable product? Seems almost unconscionable to not.https://t.co/hgytAtKLwf
One of our personal Heros (also once a Vermonter!) literally built an entire boat out of garbage.This ethos fills me with hope for the future. https://t.co/tCDrf6PpNK
Or for the more adventurous, recycle literal pets. 😅( these are great videos showing how to make plastic chemistry at home https://t.co/pyMNpvEyZI )https://t.co/eu8ywEH1YE
The first thing I found in this space is an older one. Some guy figured out a plan to create pop-up plastic recycling businesses and walks thru all the steps to do it.https://t.co/Kh4vIWGB4C
It's a very fascinating idea to me. That one guy has now grown into an entire community of people working on innovating in this space.https://t.co/7XvxJ69Mvf
They're really nailing the larger ecosystem effect. If you haven't heard of the #preciousplastics initiative, I hope learning about it is gives you hope as well.https://t.co/F8BXsyZG2n
I have been obsessed with finding innovative techniques for 'upcycling' the waste of our society and turning it into primitive things that we've used thru out history.Even simple things like turning garbage into panels? Absolutely excites me to no end. https://t.co/ShJKCauQkp
So I was looking at the filament extrusion kit that Precious Plastics had developed and trying to reverse engineer what they were doing, and trying to think thru how to bootstrap something like it if I was in the middle of the woods...https://t.co/jbqEi9bCro
So the first thing I noticed here is that the shredder aspect of this was primarily to keep and store the plastic in a ready to use form while separating out the job into different aspects.We don't need that if we're not taking on lots of recycling in bulk.
Ok, that highlights a different constraint. So let's aim for one bottle I find in woods (or bring back from walk to the store with the GF).Do we need to shred it? Not really.But I do want it to take less space. Empties are annoyingly lightweight like to squirrel around. Hmm.
Thought to myself "Would be cool if I could just wrap it up around my arm or somethi..." Then I remembered an old video I saw.I can make it usable as fastening material and serve more than one purpose until I can spend time to cut up and extrude it.TL;DR: turn it into rope!
One of my favorite wilderness survival Youtubers made a video about this ages ago. He showed an easy way to split bottles down and turn them into an amazing heat-shrink 'tape'.https://t.co/Kj6h8GJwJu
They even released the plans for that for free!https://t.co/n7ehy4VzGC
You don't even need to do that whole aluminum cutting frame. if you're ok with something a bit more risky, a piece of wood will do.https://t.co/eYzyifosu7
And even the aluminum one can be done with much less finesse if you don't need to use it while you're actually out in the middle of the woods. https://t.co/BOAoHGqvUh
The rope idea was key here.I had done a lot of legwork trying to figure out how to make rope from scratch. I have no idea why I thought that would be useful, just knew ropes were used thru-out history for various things.https://t.co/8Nq98ITsqa
So there it was, sitting in my notes. The king of random himself (miss him) literally made a splitting rig with piece of wood and a sharp knife.And had footage of a Russian design that would allow me to process many bottles quickly!https://t.co/EbPh5QGtcs https://t.co/BUfwyBdbqT
And from that it wasn't that much harder to find someone who had figured out a more elegant way to do it, complete with turning it into real filament.https://t.co/5SlchJj4oe
And branching out from there let me find out that there is an entire 3D printing subcommunity exploring cheap and effective ways of turning PET bottles into filament. https://t.co/EGG301fvdM
And so that's the story of how I figured out how to make a semen testing microscope out of stuff that might be impairing semen.https://t.co/xF1MNKVCBr
When life gives you lemon flavored sugary water, you must ask yourself if tony stark could make an axe out of HDPE while stranded in the middle of the woods. https://t.co/U6TNfOnVB8
Of course for me, I don't really care what Tony Stark would build.My hero is real human being who decided to make a pushbroom out of garbage one day.https://t.co/bpDD22Zn1r
Somebody's gotta clean up this mess."If we keep throwing out plastic out into nature, eventually somethings going start eating it and then we're screwed."https://t.co/IzQXlfUwSx
Have you considered trying to figure out how to engineer your gut bacteria via horizontal gene transfer from the guts of a Styrofoam eating maggots so you can safely consume plastic? I have. 😇https://t.co/unuNUslhEv
Ok, I'm done writing this thread for now. Gonna end it with one of my favorite songs from Dr. Steel.https://t.co/aNXQqXKKWU
Yes, the title of this piece is a self referential pun on making PET plastic thread. You're welcome. https://t.co/nmcxRR6x7S
Found a video showing how to turn a $350 metal plastic shredder into something you can just crank by hand. https://t.co/RKcNMDBeAzStill looking for one that can be hooked up to a stationary bike w/ a hopper.
I also saw a cool idea on @HikingHack's feed shortly after making the thread here. They're showing a mod for 3d printer base that turns it into a filament extruder. Gonna see if we can do this with the Ender 3 I have, once we can get ahold of others. https://t.co/blvJmmkzix
Gonna show this to my GF later today... The idea of infusing glow in the dark powder into clear PETE is really fun for Halloween :3 https://t.co/FBqG3YHvPa
"Psychological symptoms, alteration of glucose metabolism, alteration of gene expression, and biochemical changes reflecting the characteristics of ASD-like symptoms were observed after PE exposure in a mouse model." [march 2022] https://t.co/OjF0yroX2r 🤫😇
Ordered a high-end water filter so I can control for water quality while testing.Trying to figure out the best way to consume microplastics to see if I can shift them the other way. https://t.co/YUOm5Zt1qC
Found some neat designs for more automated bottle reclamation for 3d printing filament.One of the interesting ones is this jig that uses sharpened rotary cutters made from ball bearings. Idea seems to be used in a number of builds. https://t.co/7xmKY10bdS
The Ender 3 conversion I mentioned earlier is a "Recreator 3d". https://t.co/d9RnZyVmwY
There's also a vertical version that takes up less desk space.https://t.co/pxIYmObEGh
I also just learned about this one thanks to a news article about an award they got. https://t.co/vOpkMTEr6GThis one doesn't involve recycling an old Ender 3 'cuz 95% of it is 3d printed.
Recycling failed prints via grinding seems to actually be harder than making new plastic from a PETE bottle. That's fun.Gonna be exploring what it would take to get both on the bus. https://t.co/f6qrBMEtm4
Fun fact: Figuring out how butyrate might be working to help treat cancer is an offshoot of me trying to figure out how to eat fire retardants.I think it would be neat to eat crude oil and trees too. Might prevent climate change. https://t.co/NXdrw3JR1mhttps://t.co/DDFEtFZ3e4
I've been experimenting lately to see if I can harbor acetate making microbes in my gut. Neutralizing small amounts of alcohol & turning it into acetate & eventually butryate should super-power my gut health. Butryate producers need lactate as well. https://t.co/cNUkQscgWg