Dive Brief:
- Protoprint, an India-based manufacturer of plastic filament used in 3-D printers, is connecting waste pickers with tech design firms in the U.S.
- The startup is working to establish a supply chain that begins with plastics gathered by trash scavengers who sift through garbage dumps, garbage cans, and dumpsters to collect recyclable materials used in the printers.
- After the plastics are gathered, the pickers prepare the materials using a machine that shreds plastics, and another that melts and mixes it. Protoprint then buys the filament, paying 13 times above regular market costs for the scraps.
Dive Insight:
The man behind the company is Sidhant Pai, an MIT grad who says, “The point is to create employment and value-add opportunities for the waste pickers.”
All of the equipment used to prepare the filament was developed by Protoprint. The company plans to increase capacity and anticipates selling to distributors around the world.
Plastic Bank is another company that transforms discarded plastics into filaments. The Vancouver-based firm collects plastics found in the ocean and feeds the plastic waste into a machine that creates long filaments that can be used in 3D printers to create new products.
