As a great Final Fantasy VII character once said, “The planet’s dyin’, Cloud!” A major player in the climate change currently wreaking havoc on the planet is the burning of fossil fuels. Meanwhile, plastic waste is devastating the Earth from within the ground and water. As a nascent technology, 3D printing has the opportunity to move away from non-toxic, non-petroleum-based plastics from the get-go and 3Dom is on a mission to produce environmentally friendly filament. Their latest is called “Wound Up” and, to put the third ‘r’ in “reduce, reuse, and recycle”, the material is made from recycled coffee grounds.
With its previous eco-friendly filaments, 3Dom partnered with such companies as environmentally-controversial NatureWorks and Biome3D to produce biodegradable PLA and a stronger plant-based filament. In the case of Wound Up, 3Dom has worked with bio-composite company c2renew, based in Fargo, North Dakota. The result of that partnership is a rich brown filament made from left-over coffee grounds. I would guess, based on other composites on the market, that the material is a coffee-PLA mixture, but I’m waiting to hear back from the company for verification. The filament, available in 1.75 and 2.85 mm, is shipped on a 100% bio-based spool and vacuum sealed.
This is only the first product released as a result of the 3Dom and c2renew partnership. What’s next for the two firms? Your guess is as good as mine. Based on the other materials produced by c2renew – which include: “flax fiber or shive, wood flour, hemp fiber or hurd, sunflower hull, dried distiller grains with solubles, soybean hull, oat hull, sugar beet pulp” – is either hemp or sunflower, due to the potential marketing appeal of both of those materials. You can start with your first cup of Wound Up here.
