Organizing Scrap?

I am beginning to collect a fair bit of scrap now. And as my collection of filament expands with additional colors and types, Organizing that scrap seems to have come to the forefront. Right now its in cardboard boxes (what it was shipped in for the most part) and plastic grocery bags. Not really the most elegant solution and it will become more cumbersome as the collection grows.

I am talking to those of you who plan, or already do, re-extrude your used plastic into recycled filament. One big box would suffice if you plan to simply chuck it. Not my plan. I plan on getting a grinder and an extruderbot.

As the variaty increases, so must the storage options. So, what do yall use to organize your scrap? What useful containers, organization method or tools do you use? It seems stupid and labor intensive to chuck it in one box and sort it out later, thats easy on the front end and a PITA on the back end (pun intended).

How much scrap do you anticipate getting ?

I have the odd bit of filament, a - very - occasional, failed model.
But certainly not the sort of voulme that would encourage me to make my own filament for quite some time yet.
The other thing is that given the sheer number of colurs and varieties of filament I have - to collect enough of a particular filament to recycle it into a useable length of filament would take years !

Get some labelled gallon ziplock bags and use them. :-)

Or are you collecting household plastics as well ?

Anticipating? That leans toward not having it yet. I already have it. Not a lot mind you, we are not talking 55 gallon barrels of it by any means. But, I have a small space to store it. And, I wen out last night to acquire 2 more 5 gallon buckets to store filament in an air tight container. That brings me to 4 buckets of SOURCE filament. There will be scrap from that.

Brims. Supports. Fails. Nips off the ends when you remount (where it melted before) a filament, purges from color/material changes. It all adds up.

I currently have plastic grocery bags as well as some shrink wrap bags from spools. White, black, safety orange, clear and mixed. And I have made sore to segregate ABS and PLA.

The mixed (one for PLA, one for ABS) is just that. Purges from one color to another. Stuff I don't use much of so not worth a bag on its own. That stuff I will turn into filament of unknown colors. It will eventually become the filler/support filament where color/quality are not paramount.

Eventually I will get a crusher and extruder. I have quite a few plastic bottles saved up yielding PET and PP scrap to convert into filament.

I just can't see sending this stuff to a landfill when I can make use of it given $15-$40 per pound price on new filament. I do the same with brass from reloading and the range pickups. I pick up brass after shooting at the range. I collect it from myself and anyone else who leaves it on the ground. I reload it and turn it back into ammo to shoot. Retail 9mm is $15-$20 a box. 300 Winmag is $1.50-$3.00 EACH ROUND. I can reload 9mm for 12c per round, literally less than half the cost of a new box. My rifle rounds are running about 50c per to reload or anywhere from 1/3rd to 1/6th the price. All the overused or damage brass gets put in a bin for the granddaugters. They take it to a scrap dealer and get a few bucks they can spend on themselves. Why would I not carry the same process and reuse concept on to 3D printing?

If I can produce a pound of recycled filament for use as infill or supports substantially less than a new spool would cost, why would I not do that? And yes, I am fully aware that to do so would require equipment expenditure. I have a $300 Redding T-7 turret press for loading rifle rounds. I have a $1600 Hornady LNL AP progressive for producing 400+ rounds per hour of 9mm. Plus another $1K or more of accessories and dies. All of it paid for in savings over retail ammo. The same would hold true for recycling plastics into filament. The equipment would eventually be paid for in cost reduction of supplies needed to produce a print. Once its amortized over cost savings, everything after that point is just gravy on the taters.


So, again, I am asking how people organize and process their scrap. What containers, what sorting or grouping methods, etc.?

Well, when anyone proves that you can make decent filament at home from old crap. I'll consider it :-)

But good on yer :-)

Welp, I will let you know. Plan to go down that road and see what happens :)

You know, I am really starting to like you. Your realist point of view is refreshing.

I think this is quite interesting actually :). When I was a child my dad took me on a rather unusual trip to a scrap yard at scrapi.com. One might find this boring but I was a very curious child and got bored easily at home. So any activity like a road trip with my dad was a good reason for excitement. I remember when we entered that huge yard with millions of tons of scrapped metal lying there. It was then that I realized how important recycling was and grew obsessed with idea of a greener future through this.