Stratasys Improves Recycling Program

By on March 5th, 2015 in Hardware, materials

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Stratasys has made significant improvements to their recycling program. 

The company offers a wide variety of 3D printers, all of which must use proprietary canisters of specially designed plastics and resins to provide optimum print results. The question is, what do you do with the empty canisters? 

This is actually a significant issue for heavy users of Stratasys industrial 3D printers, simply because of this: the expense of acquiring a large 3D printer implies you’d better be operating it 24 hours a day to make the most money from your investment. This means you’re using materials near-constantly, generating ever-filling trash cans with empty canisters. 

Stratasys has had a recycling program in the past. Here’s how it works: Head to Stratasys’ recycling center, and specify what types of items you have collected for recycling (see an example of the form above). Then it will print out a pre-made UPS shipping label for you. Just paste it on a box with the empties and it heads away to Stratasys Galactic HQ for processing. All you have to do is pack the items in a box. 

The latest improvement is to add more items for recycling. Previously the company accepted large canisters, but now they’re accepting practically all of the consumables found in their equipment, including the Objet line of machines. 

For equipment such as Stratasys’, it’s important to have a recycling program. Our lab had begun to accumulate a rather large pile of empties until it found a new home at Stratasys. We can’t imagine how many items were previously trashed by companies faced  with this issue. 

Via Stratasys

By Kerry Stevenson

Kerry Stevenson, aka "General Fabb" has written over 8,000 stories on 3D printing at Fabbaloo since he launched the venture in 2007, with an intention to promote and grow the incredible technology of 3D printing across the world. So far, it seems to be working!