I was super excited about Precious Plastic when I discovered them 8 years ago. But it didn't take long to realize that they didn't have a clue.
The machines are all FAR too small and fancy/expensive to really make much sense. I've seen some more practical offshoots from PP that design larger machines with recycled materials etc, and consequently they have sustainable businesses around the world.
So, most of all, as is clear from the post, they never really even tried - in over a decade - to make it a viable, self-sustaining enterprise, of any sort.
Also, what's conspicuously missing from the post is their Portugal-based Precious Plastic Camp boondoggle, which always struck me as a hipster commune more than anything.
They also suddenly deleted the original forums, which contained lots of fantastic info.
So, I don't have much faith that throwing more good money after bad would help at all. I'm grateful for the inspiration and excitement that they brought into the world, but it's time for them to be recycled.
And, yet, I expect they'll con someone into helping revive them for version 5, 6 and beyond. That's the way of the non-profit world.
patcon · 40s ago
I think it is a shame what such a negative comment is at the top.
In fact, I am ashamed by association. Their burn rate is low (~$30,000/year now, though likely higher before) and the value they generate for everyone else has clearly been very high, even just in intangibles. They sound like a public good, and you hang them out to dry for not being... a profitable corporation? Is there an alternate universe where you toss libraries under the bus as well, when they fail to pay their way like bookstores? (I'm curious if anyone has feelings, why or why not this is a reasonable comparison for me to make.)
You (and those voting/speaking to your worldview) are likely materially collapsing something from existing through creating a narrative here. Which is meaningful because this community is likely one that could step up -- with a deep understanding of open source, and wealth through tech associations and profits.
Is your take worth that? Is PP universally bad enough that you wish for that to be your contribution here?
blagie · 1h ago
"Con" is a strong word, and I'm not sure appropriate.
If someone was taking a $500k salary from donated funds, I'd feel it's a con. I see nothing to that effect.
People without a clue sometimes pick up a clue after some time. Donors donate for a variety of reasons. There are angel investors who donate simply because they want to push a concept along, or want to help nice people.
If someone wealthy decides to support them instead of e.g. buying a supercar or a $10M painting, I think it's all good.
Live and let live.
nchmy · 1h ago
you're right, 'con' was far too strong and unfair of a word.
They seem like decent enough people, but completely incapable of running a project like this. Which is what a significant portion of the non-profit world is made up of.
I don't think its all good though if someone donates to keep it alive - there's many FAR more worthy organizations to give money to, be it for plastic or any other cause. And, quite often, those that receive large amounts of funds are far better at marketing (or, worse, playing "the game"), than actually operating
robingchan · 3h ago
I hate to say it but i sort of agree.
I’ve also followed PP from the initial grant in Paris but a lot of these problems seem to be self-inflicted. Ones that most stood out were having no insurance, unrealistic open source expectations and giving $100k away rather than furthering the cause.
I’m sure theres minutiae and context i’m missing but that post doesn’t scream competence.
I’m worried any donation would be fluttered away.
The line about being at peace with the project dying seems bizarre. Perhaps time for a little organisational shakeup
xmprt · 1h ago
> The line about being at peace with the project dying seems bizarre
Perhaps it's just me but this was the line that made the most sense to me. If a non-profit thinks they've achieved their mission, or at least that they don't have a good plan for next steps, then the most sensible thing to do is to close shop rather than to spend money unnecessarily.
fsckboy · 1m ago
i went to read the page
then i went to read the comments here, current count 65
i don't get a sense that the people interested in this topic agree on anything, except "it's of some, but not too much, importance"
i do, however, get a sense that the people interested in this are in a distinct minority. i am always happy when a distinct minority gets their day in the sun and I get to learn about them.
decimalenough · 3h ago
After reading this and clicking around the site I'm still not entirely sure what these machines actually do. Apparently they grind up hard plastics and turn them into pellets? But similar machines already exist as a commercial/industrial product that can easily and cheaply (from $500) be bought from Alibaba etc [1], so their differentiation is that their machines are open-source? Which is useful how, exactly? Their Pro page estimates EUR 2000+ in parts alone per machine, plus you need to cobble the things together yourself.
It's useful for people who don't want to make a bicycle-powered shredder and instead want to source local laser-cut specialized alloys and all sorts of electronics, so they can produce a few kg of shredded plastic per day, and then a few bowls. /s
The value of Precious Plastic has long-since been realized - it inspired some actually-practical people to start making cottage recycling industries in the developing world, which has helped provide some employment and divert some plastic from rivers.
toomuchtodo · 3h ago
All of this plastic should be shoveled into a plasma gasifier. This performance art is just a grift. Recycling it results in suboptimal downstream products, landfilling it allows for future mismanagement (methane emissions, groundwater contamination). Gasification is cleaner than incineration, and you can burn the syn gas produced to recover some energy for cogeneration. Resulting slag produced is inert and can be safely landfilled.
germinalphrase · 2h ago
Is there any (realistic) concern that plasma gasification causes an adverse incentive to generate additional waste vs waste reduction efforts because now localities are, to some degree, dependent on feeding the machine to generate electricity? Do localities with plasma gasifiers end up purchasing waste from elsewhere to maintain waste input stocks? I am not familiar with the economics here.
mortenjorck · 2h ago
> Do localities with plasma gasifiers end up purchasing waste from elsewhere to maintain waste input stocks?
This… sounds like a very good problem to have?
komali2 · 2h ago
Until the plastic runs out. I was confused by the comment as well but I started thinking about the disposable movement - cheaper to just make and throw away plastic utensils than for McDonald's to have flatware, and remains cheap if there's buyers for the plastic.
A good solution with unfortunately perverse incentives. Probably the solution is government bans on unnecessarily wasteful uses of plastics. The market is provably incapable of tackling environmental issues without regulatory encouragement.
SchemaLoad · 2h ago
In Australia plastic utensils and bags have been banned for so long you'd almost forget they existed. Was a pretty big shock traveling to other countries and seeing how far behind they are on this stuff. There wasn't even a difficult transition period, it just probably costs an extra cent to use wood over plastic.
acyou · 1h ago
Ever wonder if wood is really a renewable resource? Once you see a 4th generation forest, you start to realize we might be running pretty short.
This seems to bounce back and forth, for awhile it was save the trees, now it's cut down trees to save the world apparently?
SchemaLoad · 1h ago
The wood they are using comes from tree farming, not deforestation. It's pretty low density fast growing wood that's about as renewable as it gets. Worlds better than plastic at the least.
I think you’re overstating this somewhat - I took eggs home in a plastic bag from my local butcher this morning and ate with plastic forks and knives at a picnic on the weekend. Yes, in Australia.
SchemaLoad · 1h ago
I guess depends on the state. I haven't even seen a plastic fork in Australia for a long time. Stores were banned from selling them many years ago. I guess if you went out of your way to direct import them from overseas.
ekianjo · 46m ago
Wood ends up in a landfill anyway or they have proper way to separate it from the rest of the trash?
SchemaLoad · 34m ago
What's the problem with wood ending up in landfill? It's not going to leach toxins and it's locking away carbon underground.
toomuchtodo · 1h ago
Plastics are not the only waste you can gasify. Organics, cardboard, wood, paper, medical waste, household rubbish, etc. The only materials you don’t want in the waste stream are metals, glass, rock, and brick.
> Is there any (realistic) concern that plasma gasification causes an adverse incentive to generate additional waste vs waste reduction efforts
If waste reduction is a problematic catalyst for more production and pollution, … We have a problem even bigger than I thought.
I would hope that would not be the case, but apparently recycling theater successfully reduced efforts to push back on the supply side.
Our self-created problems are becoming ridiculous. By the time the ultra rich are chocking on plastic in their caviar the rest of us will already be plasticized.
lurk2 · 2h ago
> Do localities with plasma gasifiers end up purchasing waste from elsewhere to maintain waste input stocks?
This wouldn’t be a problem for a very long time. The reason so much of this waste ends up being landfilled or shipped overseas is due to a lack of capacity in existing waste-to-energy plants. It isn’t quite like the perverse-incentive problem introduced by biomass facilities because the waste is going to be generated regardless.
imachine1980_ · 2h ago
You can tax plastic also that will more than move the demand you can even use this tax for plasma gasification making more expensive to use and less to reuse.
alfor · 2h ago
Exactly: plastic is already cheap in the pristine version, the mixed, contaminated is a nonsense product, valid only as a grift, greenwashing prop.
Burn it and handle the remains properly.
spoaceman7777 · 2h ago
Wow. The only people who could have decided to write and publish this article are the same people who did all of the other insane things in that article.
It reads as though they're begging people not to bail them out.
Like... in all of that, there isn't a single detail about how they aren't going to kneecap themselves again. (And, considering their track record, that seems inevitable, if not imminent.)
This should be taken down, and whoever has been doing these things should write up a plan for what they might do to prevent the truly obscene mismanagement laid out in the article from continuing. Perhaps ask for advice? Or, more likely, stop ignoring advice that many people must surely have been giving them.
Without that, they are seemingly just going to continue wasting the time, and money, of anyone who might get involved with their project.
(Also, the random pot shot at open source in general was unnecessary, irrelevant, and bitter. If they wanted people who use their software to give something back, then they should have licensed it accordingly.)
monkmartinez · 4h ago
US Centric view:
I would love to open a workspace. Full stop.
However, due to the price of the shredder and the tools required to transform the plastic into new forms; One needs to have a dedicated space with a lot of power. Then you need to secure a source of plastic. You would think this part would be easy, I mean that is the whole premise of this org's existence, right? You would be wrong in that assumption. There is big money in "recycling" in the US. From the collection, sorting, and distribution of recycled materials... someone already has a contract to legally "do it."
I am bummed to see them in this position. There seems to be a few hotspots around the world where this would really work. They aren't near me, that is for sure.
hinkley · 3h ago
15KW to make a single sheet of plastic. That is practically the entire capacity of a residential power feed.
And “several sheets per day”. Ouch.
If I were seeing a plastic recycling facility on How It’s Made I would expect to see a continuous feed system, with elaborate heat scavenging systems to preheat the ingredients while cooling the product.
I’m not sure how you scale such a thing down to cottage industry scale. Preheating to around 60° could be reasonably done by amateurs but this stuff goes up to at least 350° to melt plastic.
mchannon · 2h ago
Am thinking propane tanks.
Working with those temps probably not appropriate for an office environment, but on a porch or well-ventilated garage, should economically outperform 110V pretty well.
block_dagger · 4h ago
I don’t think “full stop” means what you think it means.
kleton · 3h ago
I'll raise an alternative: plastics are degraded by the heat and pressure of repeated processes like injection molding. Recycled plastic objects will be of lower quality and shed more microplastics. Instead of recycling them, incinerate them for electrical energy. Use a modern incinerator design that guarantees 100% mineralization to carbon dioxide and water.
SchemaLoad · 3h ago
I looked in to this because it does actually sound logical, but it seems like burying plastic in landfill might actually be better. By incinerating it, you've taken carbon (oil) out of the ground, and released it into the atmosphere. By burying it back underground you are locking it away for at least a thousand years.
We need to cut down on producing it first, recycle it second, and then bury it as deep as possible.
LarsAlereon · 3h ago
In general landfilling (in modern, properly designed landfills) should be regarded as a kind of carbon sequestration. It's actually pretty hard to be better for the environment than that.
9283409232 · 3h ago
Manufacturing would like a quicker return on investment than 1000 years. We already made the plastic, they would like to do something with it.
ekianjo · 3h ago
Don't you contaminate the soils if you do that? Water flows everywhere...
In theory yes. In practical terms, it's cheaper to ship it to India so you don't have to store it in the expensive landfill with all the regulations and staff that have maternity leave and dental care, where the plastic can be piled into artificial mountains with basically no landfill design principles applied.
SchemaLoad · 2h ago
Maybe but contaminates off plastic bottles in controlled landfills isn't my biggest concern. Contaminates from PFAS and microplastics off car tires and clothing are massively worse. Solid plastic is _fairly_ inert at least compared to most of the other pollutants we are pumping out.
cyberax · 2h ago
A better alternative is de-polymerization, turning the plastic into monomers (or at least oligopolymers). This way, 90% of it can be recycled without degradation.
And the remaining 10% can be burned, of course.
colechristensen · 1h ago
There are several candidate processes for restoring plastics into virgin materials. If we had an overabundance of very cheap renewable energy (like the excesses during daily peak solar production which are just characteristic of lots of solar) you can just tear the carbon into pieces by getting it extremely hot under high pressure to essentially create new crude oil and start from scratch. In the current world there are some promising enzymes that can tear apart polymers to return plastic to an earlier stage in production which makes it more or less fully recyclable without degradation, but these things are still under development.
This is an ambulancing project. The focus should be on forcing industry to pay for the pollution they create on an industrial scale. It's never going to be cleaned up by small actors. These projects probably make plastic production more acceptable which is not what we want. Look over there, see recycling a few tones of plastic works, now let's carry on producing boat loads of shit.
Scrapemist · 1h ago
Several industrial scale recycling facilities in the Netherlands have closed or gone bankrupt partly due to how cheap new plastics are. They simply can’t compete and were hoping for legislation that enforces producers to deal with the waist or tax the use of new plastics. Sadly it never happened. Probably a strong lobby.
acyou · 1h ago
I didn't see an FAQ and can only guess and piece it together, here goes:
Precious Plastics designs, sells and operates plastic processing and recycling equipment, including crucibles, presses, extrusion presses, sheet presses, injection molding machines, shredders, graders. You can buy the equipment or download the drawings for free, it's open source.
Precious Plastics operates a partner network of plastic recyclers and processors. Especially in developing countries where industrial scale recycling infrastructure doesn't already exist, this allows plastic recycling to happen in situations where it would otherwise go in a landfill.
Precious Plastics has a small, human centric ideal embedded in its culture and messaging. It's based around the idea of a small machine in a garage operated as a hobby with others in the local community, not a vertically integrated industrial behemoth.
Does that cover it well?
try_the_bass · 42m ago
Was this written by an LLM?
acyou · 6m ago
No, what are you trying to say?
Joel_Mckay · 24m ago
They ignored industrial drain pipe manufactures that already include >25% recycled plastics.
Then bumped their design cost out of hobby budgets, and ignored safety warnings about steam blow-outs with molten plastics for decades.
The math doesn't math... ymmv =3
kevinh456 · 1h ago
It took way too fucking long to figure out what they’re doing. Maybe they should have paid for pr or marketing or something.
sneak · 3h ago
Someone donated 100k to them recently and they apparently gave it all to their community and didn’t use it to save their own org, so now they’re broke and dying.
Even cash won’t save you if you don’t know how to budget and plan.
3dsnano · 3h ago
their work to date seems like 100K well spent on trying something very few other people would even attempt, no less take it as far as they did.
i'm not sure if people here comprehend how much work it is to do and sustain something like this for almost a decade. a lot of the work is niche community-building, it's a hard slog fought one workshop at a time. its like herding idealistic cats, not easy. i will always appreciate those who hold the line and choose to die on weird hills like this.
while i commend them on their work to date, it's clear that this is a hard problem to solve within our current socio-economic environment. after all, plastic is around us, within us, and inevitably part of us now. as humans we need to stop burying it and confront what we are doing.
hinkley · 3h ago
It’s a lot harder to be an effective person than a well meaning one. I knew some people who tried to get an intentional community together and it was three or for professionally successful people and a lot of people who could burn up a meeting with talk but not much else.
munificent · 2h ago
> It’s a lot harder to be an effective person than a well meaning one.
I don't think this is true, but I do think it's more than 2x harder to be both effective and well-meaning.
Getting things done without doing anything shady or unethical is sort of like winning a race while running on one leg.
matkoniecz · 3h ago
> We received a €100K donation. Which was amazing, but we decided to give it all to the community so they can continue developing their projects. Not to sustain the organisation itself.
And I see no mention that they have any plans to not do it again
kazinator · 2h ago
> Our problem was Chrome-6, a chemical the municipality found in the paint from the building that was applied 40 years ago. Which meant we had to leave the workspace fast, and the building was large, we had a lot of machines and items to sell, in a short amount of time, during lockdowns. This meant we had to sell many things below value since that period most people were looking to buy bread machines, not robot arms.
That's an asshole thing to do. Nothing is more petty than municipal politics, especially if amplified by a pandemic.
"The sky is going to fall if something isn't done about the 40-year-old Chrome-6! Everyone must GTF out of that building, right NOW!"
colechristensen · 1h ago
I assume they mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexavalent_chromium which indeed is quite toxic, not allowing businesses to operate where their workers could be exposed to carcinogens is very reasonable and not at all petty municipal politics.
kazinator · 1h ago
There is absolutely no reason to have a cow over this stuff being present in existing paint, unless it is chalking, or being sanded. Not to the extent that everyone has to evacuate immediately and sell their badly needed equipment for below market value.
It's a dick move.
Joel_Mckay · 17m ago
Most places that ran plating treatments are toxic waste sites.
Site remediation is slow and really expensive, but better than organ failure or cancer. Chrome salts can be particularly bad with low LD50 ratings. =3
colechristensen · 1h ago
Until there's a reasonably priced industrial scale process to efficiently reprocess plastics into indistinguishable-from-virgin plastic precursors, I think all plastic waste and similar garbage should be burned in well maintained waste-to-power plants and eliminating this source of semi-fossil-fuel energy should only be considered a priority when all other fossil fuel power sources have been effectively eliminated.
We're already burning things for power, might as well have that crude oil take a detour into consumer products for a while first, and because it's useful in several ways, make it last in line to eliminate (and at the same time offsetting some oil/coal/gas production)
comfrey · 1h ago
Six months before we run out of money oh my gosh, what a blessing, bro count your blessings and be grateful
renewiltord · 1h ago
I’m going to be straight with you: if you’re fundraising you need to write for the people who aren’t already part of your audience.
If that’s not what you’re doing then it doesn’t matter. But I read your blurb and then met the video at the fold and instinctively hit back.
moralestapia · 2h ago
It would be nice to know how much money they got during all this time they've been active.
comfrey · 1h ago
From my own personal experience, it sounds like mismanagement
If you have six months of funds, left to operate, then count your blessings and be grateful and be creative bro
The machines are all FAR too small and fancy/expensive to really make much sense. I've seen some more practical offshoots from PP that design larger machines with recycled materials etc, and consequently they have sustainable businesses around the world.
So, most of all, as is clear from the post, they never really even tried - in over a decade - to make it a viable, self-sustaining enterprise, of any sort.
Also, what's conspicuously missing from the post is their Portugal-based Precious Plastic Camp boondoggle, which always struck me as a hipster commune more than anything.
They also suddenly deleted the original forums, which contained lots of fantastic info.
So, I don't have much faith that throwing more good money after bad would help at all. I'm grateful for the inspiration and excitement that they brought into the world, but it's time for them to be recycled.
And, yet, I expect they'll con someone into helping revive them for version 5, 6 and beyond. That's the way of the non-profit world.
In fact, I am ashamed by association. Their burn rate is low (~$30,000/year now, though likely higher before) and the value they generate for everyone else has clearly been very high, even just in intangibles. They sound like a public good, and you hang them out to dry for not being... a profitable corporation? Is there an alternate universe where you toss libraries under the bus as well, when they fail to pay their way like bookstores? (I'm curious if anyone has feelings, why or why not this is a reasonable comparison for me to make.)
You (and those voting/speaking to your worldview) are likely materially collapsing something from existing through creating a narrative here. Which is meaningful because this community is likely one that could step up -- with a deep understanding of open source, and wealth through tech associations and profits.
Is your take worth that? Is PP universally bad enough that you wish for that to be your contribution here?
If someone was taking a $500k salary from donated funds, I'd feel it's a con. I see nothing to that effect.
People without a clue sometimes pick up a clue after some time. Donors donate for a variety of reasons. There are angel investors who donate simply because they want to push a concept along, or want to help nice people.
If someone wealthy decides to support them instead of e.g. buying a supercar or a $10M painting, I think it's all good.
Live and let live.
They seem like decent enough people, but completely incapable of running a project like this. Which is what a significant portion of the non-profit world is made up of.
I don't think its all good though if someone donates to keep it alive - there's many FAR more worthy organizations to give money to, be it for plastic or any other cause. And, quite often, those that receive large amounts of funds are far better at marketing (or, worse, playing "the game"), than actually operating
I’ve also followed PP from the initial grant in Paris but a lot of these problems seem to be self-inflicted. Ones that most stood out were having no insurance, unrealistic open source expectations and giving $100k away rather than furthering the cause.
I’m sure theres minutiae and context i’m missing but that post doesn’t scream competence.
I’m worried any donation would be fluttered away.
The line about being at peace with the project dying seems bizarre. Perhaps time for a little organisational shakeup
Perhaps it's just me but this was the line that made the most sense to me. If a non-profit thinks they've achieved their mission, or at least that they don't have a good plan for next steps, then the most sensible thing to do is to close shop rather than to spend money unnecessarily.
then i went to read the comments here, current count 65
i don't get a sense that the people interested in this topic agree on anything, except "it's of some, but not too much, importance"
i do, however, get a sense that the people interested in this are in a distinct minority. i am always happy when a distinct minority gets their day in the sun and I get to learn about them.
[1] https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/plastic-recycling.html
[2] https://www.preciousplastic.com/solutions/machines/pro
The value of Precious Plastic has long-since been realized - it inspired some actually-practical people to start making cottage recycling industries in the developing world, which has helped provide some employment and divert some plastic from rivers.
This… sounds like a very good problem to have?
A good solution with unfortunately perverse incentives. Probably the solution is government bans on unnecessarily wasteful uses of plastics. The market is provably incapable of tackling environmental issues without regulatory encouragement.
This seems to bounce back and forth, for awhile it was save the trees, now it's cut down trees to save the world apparently?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/plasma-gasi...
If waste reduction is a problematic catalyst for more production and pollution, … We have a problem even bigger than I thought.
I would hope that would not be the case, but apparently recycling theater successfully reduced efforts to push back on the supply side.
Our self-created problems are becoming ridiculous. By the time the ultra rich are chocking on plastic in their caviar the rest of us will already be plasticized.
This wouldn’t be a problem for a very long time. The reason so much of this waste ends up being landfilled or shipped overseas is due to a lack of capacity in existing waste-to-energy plants. It isn’t quite like the perverse-incentive problem introduced by biomass facilities because the waste is going to be generated regardless.
It reads as though they're begging people not to bail them out.
Like... in all of that, there isn't a single detail about how they aren't going to kneecap themselves again. (And, considering their track record, that seems inevitable, if not imminent.)
This should be taken down, and whoever has been doing these things should write up a plan for what they might do to prevent the truly obscene mismanagement laid out in the article from continuing. Perhaps ask for advice? Or, more likely, stop ignoring advice that many people must surely have been giving them.
Without that, they are seemingly just going to continue wasting the time, and money, of anyone who might get involved with their project.
(Also, the random pot shot at open source in general was unnecessary, irrelevant, and bitter. If they wanted people who use their software to give something back, then they should have licensed it accordingly.)
I would love to open a workspace. Full stop.
However, due to the price of the shredder and the tools required to transform the plastic into new forms; One needs to have a dedicated space with a lot of power. Then you need to secure a source of plastic. You would think this part would be easy, I mean that is the whole premise of this org's existence, right? You would be wrong in that assumption. There is big money in "recycling" in the US. From the collection, sorting, and distribution of recycled materials... someone already has a contract to legally "do it."
I am bummed to see them in this position. There seems to be a few hotspots around the world where this would really work. They aren't near me, that is for sure.
And “several sheets per day”. Ouch.
If I were seeing a plastic recycling facility on How It’s Made I would expect to see a continuous feed system, with elaborate heat scavenging systems to preheat the ingredients while cooling the product.
I’m not sure how you scale such a thing down to cottage industry scale. Preheating to around 60° could be reasonably done by amateurs but this stuff goes up to at least 350° to melt plastic.
Working with those temps probably not appropriate for an office environment, but on a porch or well-ventilated garage, should economically outperform 110V pretty well.
We need to cut down on producing it first, recycle it second, and then bury it as deep as possible.
And the remaining 10% can be burned, of course.
Start a Business from Plastic Waste - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26860992 - April 2021 (98 comments)
Precious Plastic Version 4 [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21986375 - Jan 2020 (12 comments)
Precious Plastic Version 3.0 aims to fix plastic pollution - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15497732 - Oct 2017 (35 comments)
PreciousPlastic – An Open Source Plastic Recycling Workshop - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11381530 - Mar 2016 (2 comments)
Precious Plastics designs, sells and operates plastic processing and recycling equipment, including crucibles, presses, extrusion presses, sheet presses, injection molding machines, shredders, graders. You can buy the equipment or download the drawings for free, it's open source.
Precious Plastics operates a partner network of plastic recyclers and processors. Especially in developing countries where industrial scale recycling infrastructure doesn't already exist, this allows plastic recycling to happen in situations where it would otherwise go in a landfill.
Precious Plastics has a small, human centric ideal embedded in its culture and messaging. It's based around the idea of a small machine in a garage operated as a hobby with others in the local community, not a vertically integrated industrial behemoth.
Does that cover it well?
Then bumped their design cost out of hobby budgets, and ignored safety warnings about steam blow-outs with molten plastics for decades.
The math doesn't math... ymmv =3
Even cash won’t save you if you don’t know how to budget and plan.
i'm not sure if people here comprehend how much work it is to do and sustain something like this for almost a decade. a lot of the work is niche community-building, it's a hard slog fought one workshop at a time. its like herding idealistic cats, not easy. i will always appreciate those who hold the line and choose to die on weird hills like this.
while i commend them on their work to date, it's clear that this is a hard problem to solve within our current socio-economic environment. after all, plastic is around us, within us, and inevitably part of us now. as humans we need to stop burying it and confront what we are doing.
I don't think this is true, but I do think it's more than 2x harder to be both effective and well-meaning.
Getting things done without doing anything shady or unethical is sort of like winning a race while running on one leg.
And I see no mention that they have any plans to not do it again
That's an asshole thing to do. Nothing is more petty than municipal politics, especially if amplified by a pandemic.
"The sky is going to fall if something isn't done about the 40-year-old Chrome-6! Everyone must GTF out of that building, right NOW!"
It's a dick move.
Site remediation is slow and really expensive, but better than organ failure or cancer. Chrome salts can be particularly bad with low LD50 ratings. =3
We're already burning things for power, might as well have that crude oil take a detour into consumer products for a while first, and because it's useful in several ways, make it last in line to eliminate (and at the same time offsetting some oil/coal/gas production)
If that’s not what you’re doing then it doesn’t matter. But I read your blurb and then met the video at the fold and instinctively hit back.
If you have six months of funds, left to operate, then count your blessings and be grateful and be creative bro
come on now why are you complaining?