Nele og Marie

Plastic recycling project

Ongoning material research since 2016

Jewellery by Nele og Marie since 2019

In collaboration with Marie Kremer

Exhibited at PRODUCT(ION) (2018, Kiel)

In collaboration with Spinderihallerne (2021, Vejle)

This project was born out of frustration about the amount of plastic waste produced in the 3D workshops of the Design Schools I studied at. In explorative manufacturing, the 3D printer allows designers out and, in education, direct, fast prototyping of the designs we make. This easiness is a significant benefit in creating products compared to other production methods regarding speed, quality, and accessibility. However, one major factor besides the 3Dprints needed in the design process is the ones that failed. 3D printing is often an explorative way of testing a design and therefore is based on failures and errors. Those unusable prints pile up in the trash beside the 3D printers.

The material often used is PLA (Polylactide), a synthetic polymer-based on corn starch. This material is easy to recycle and is already used in many projects regarding open-source plastic recycling (see: precious plastics).

In the process of recycling, we collect the old 3D prints, sort them, shred them in our self-made shredder and back the crushed pallets into sheets. These sheets are the base for our designs and can be used in a variety of products.