Design firm 'The New Raw' based in Rotterdam, Netherlands, has designed XXX bench seats made from waste plastic bags. Designers point out one major flaw of plastic: the plastic material is designed to last forever but the things that are made from it are only used sometimes for as short as a few seconds. So the challenge was to create something out of this very durable waste.

Introducing the XXX bench. These benches can seat 2 or 4 people and the bench 'rocks' with shifting weight. This way of finding balance or equilibrium is similar to the way we should deal with the use of plastic- in balance. A large scale pellet extrusion 3D printer was used to create these furniture pieces. The plastic waste from one person in Amsterdam is equivalent to half a bench. So every year, two people can produce enough plastic waste to make 1 bench. Waste plastic goes through quite a process when recycled. In this particular project, the waste plastic was first turned into pellets which are then fed into the 3D printing machine.

Large scale 3D printing is a game-changer in terms of plastic recycling. By being able to use this plastic waste by turning it to 3D printing friendly plastic pellets, then this opens a world of possibilities. For many years we have been limited by the traditional ways of recycling plastic. But with innovations like these, we find fewer excuses to not to treat plastic as a precious re-usable resource instead of the disposable nature we see it today.

Mass producing capabilities that modern times bring are crucial to finding better solutions to creating alternative ways to use plastic. Anther technology is rapid laser printing which is used by other materials. Some of which are used on Bamboo. Visit this online shop to see how rapid laser printing is used to create unique bamboo toothbrush designs.