In the world that we live in, doing good for the planet is rarely rewarded, often costly & almost always more effort. At 3DTomorrow we love a challenge, so set out to make doing good for the planet worth the effort!
You might have heard the mantra: reduce, re-use, recycle? Well for our spool, you have two options: break the spool up and recycle it in your local collection or two, send back to us for re-use. Since sending spools back to us for re-use – albeit slightly more effort – is the more environmentally friendly option, we wanted to find a way to incentive spool return.
Spool Return (*did someone say coupons*)
If you return our spools back to us, we’ll reward you with coupons off your next purchase. They’re not designed to be life-changing, just to provide a small kickback for taking the most eco-friendly route. We’ll even take back cardboard spools made by MCPP (they’re the Dutch Manufacturer that produces filament for Oozenest, Filamentive & 3DFilaprint).
Coupon Table
| Spool Type | Coupon Earned |
| Our Final UK PLA, Silk, Astro, etc | £1.00 / spool |
| MCPP Cardboard Spool (Filamentive, 3DFilaprint, Oozenest) | £0.50 / spool |
| Our Development Spools | Please recycle! |
How do I return spools?
As with just about everything, the higher the volume the better the deal, so we advise saving up your spools to send as many as possible back in one go. The guidance for sending spools back to us is very similar to our print waste recycling program
Package frequency. Transport has an environmental cost, so it is preferable that packages are sent after a number of spools are collected. Below we have outlined a number of possible postage options that could be considered:
- Royal Mail Second Class Small Parcel: £3, max weight of 2kg and dimensions of 45 x 35 x 16cm. With good packing, it should be possible to fit 10 spools in a box this size.
- Courier Package (≈£7-8): max weight up to 20kg and dimensions around 50x50x50cm, so up to 50 spools. Couriers available from sites such as parcel2go generally provide very reasonable rates without an account.
- Multiple Courier Packages (multiple boxes in one shipment). This is a good way to further reduce the transportation impact, it would also lower package cost as low as £4/box depending on courier and number of packages.
- Pallet (≈£60): If a common form of shipment for the business, this option can be accommodated. However, we can only accept 100 x 120cm pallets in good condition, since this is a size we can then re-use. Pallets can accommodate around 800 spools.
When you’re ready to send spools back, just drop us a line: [email protected]