We believe environmental consideration is a requirement for every decision. As such, to be ‘Future Friendly’ was one of the founding principles of 3DTomorrow. The achievement that makes us the proudest is the introduction of eco-friendly filament, both to the market directly and via our print service. At first glance, viewers may typecast a manufacturer that works with plastics as ‘not eco friendly’. However, we believe our efforts (discussed below) go far beyond the industry standard. We recognise there is always more to do and will continue to strive for improvement.
Exclusively at 3DTomorrow
- Filament – we have produced our own eco friendly filament line to take more control over the materials we use. Our new line – UK PLA – directly supports a number of UK businesses and ensures the carbon footprint of our filament is as low as possible! We launched our own filament brand with a focus on eco friendly filament. Not only does this significantly reduce our carbon footprint, but also allows us to help our users do the same.
- Green website – GreenGeeks, the worlds most environmentally friendly provider, hosts the 3DTomorrow website. They have been our provider from day one. The average website pollutes 4.5kg of CO2 per 1000 visits. To counteract this some hosts invest in carbon neutral programs to balance their impact. Our host, not only neutralises their impact but also delivers an additional two times their consumption back to the power grid. To quote them directly ‘for every kilowatt of electricity that we draw from the power grid, we return three kilowatts in the form of wind and solar energy’, this makes them a 300% green host.
- Recyclable packaging – our packaging is recyclable, paper tape included. We also make use of recycled packaging everywhere possible, we are not a fan of anything single use! This ethos also helps to keep our wastage low, as many single-use items can often be given another life as packaging fill.
- Filament waste recycling – 3D printing generates a lot of waste over time, this is unavoidable. Nevertheless, we recycle all of our print waste, which saves it from the scrap pile. We supply our local plastic-free shop with recycled supplies with a not for profit policy and in the near future hope to offer this via our website also. Check out an example below.
- Customer waste recycling – as soon as we found a way to recycle our own waste, we knew we had to offer this to our customers. Interested? Here’s the link.
- Carbon Neutral Shipping – for packaging we send out directly, we pay extra for UPS Carbon Neutral. Next time you order, look out for the logo on your shipping label.
Generally in 3D Printing
- As a bioplastic made from corn starch, PLA is a sustainable plastic unlike oil-based alternatives and will biodegrade under the right conditions.
- 3D Printing is an additive process producing inherently less waste than subtractive processes such as CNC machining. In the best case, a part created by an additive process uses the exact amount of material for the part. Some designs do require support material, nevertheless, additive processes are still far more efficient than subtractive. At a minimum, subtractive processes use a solid cube of material, equal to the bounding box of the part.
