One thing that stopped me from getting a 3D printer for a long time (and still gives me some hesitation) is the issue of plastic waste. I’m disappointed at the state of filament tech and recycling today, but I did come across this “PHA” thing in a casual search.
Has anyone heard of, looked into, or even tried using PHA? It’s supposedly fully biodegradable in a natural environment - no industrial process needed like with PLA.
It might not be what you want for a final product, but for prototyping or for things we don’t need to exist forever in a harsh environment, it sounds great.
If this stuff is for real, it’d be great for a big company like Bambu to start producing it, and I bet it would improve any filament vendor’s public image. It seems hard to find. This random company has one listing that isn’t labelled sold out:
Yeah a bit. I was thinking Bambu’s normal spool weight is the same but it’s actually 1kg, so that makes it worse too. I guess/hope that’s just due to small scale production (economy of scale concept).
If a well known producer like Bambu were to popularize it, maybe it’d do better.
I doubt it. If from manufacturing perspective would be cost effective, this kind of filament would be already (widely) available and (relatively) cheap. But, I guess that the manufacturing of such filament type does require additional materials, particular technical specifications and a more costly process. As it currently is, there will be very few manufacturers at this time willing to mass produce and widely distribute such a filament at a reasonable cost for the average end-user. Bambu might try launching a small batch to test the existing market demand, and users reactions (order intake vs quality and price), but somehow I don’t think it will sell that much, unless the price will be at par with the most common and cheap PLA/PLA+ filaments. Companies are more interested in making a profit than in ecology and sustainability. And those advertising being eco and environmental friendly (or aware) in manufacturing (some of) their products, are doing it for advertisment and white-washing their public image, to distance themselves from their most fierce competitors, for regulatory compliance (where this applies, i.e. in the EU), and increasing their reputation and market share… but all this eco-friendly stuff comes usually at a premium cost for the end users, and such stuff doesn’t always guarantee quality results for the end product/print.
I haven’t tried this one, but can say that I’ve tried quite a few of colorfabb’s filaments and quite like it, they have a lot of different types of infills that give quite interesting textures which I appreciate
Sure they are on the more expensive side, but they are based out of the Netherlands, and offer a huge array of options, you can even ask for specific colors to be created for you, and processes to be eco friendly do tend to be more expensive than the old ways, it is what it is
Yeah health and environment aren’t free that’s for sure. I don’t think anyone would accuse me of being an environmentalist. Probably the opposite really; I try not to make these problems worse where possible.
But I did figure that the type of person who wants what a 3D printer can do would tend to have this mindset. Is that wrong? It does seem wrong if nobody’s willing to pay the extra premium for this kind of thing, so maybe I can answer my own question. It would be interesting to see a 3DP community rate themselves on how eco-minded they are.
I might try it out just to see what it’s like. It sounds like it wouldn’t be AMS compatible so I won’t risk such a test (or maybe it’ll even cost me a nozzle… what’s the risk level here?) but since it seems like I’m going to be doing more throwaway ‘test prototypes’ than what I guess the average 3DP owner does, it seems appealing.
It’s also appealing since I won’t have to worry about all this plastic junk building up in a box taking up space, needing to figure a way to get rid of it some day. Maybe just throw it into a compost box and dump the contents out after it looks normal. I’m willing to pay a few extra bucks on filament just for that! Am I in a minority then?
LOL - It looks like if the website is to be believed, they only have two in stock and it’s just the ‘natural’ color which I guess is like a grey/white.
The market for this must be completely non-existent!
It would be interesting to see a 3DP community rate themselves on how eco-minded they are.