936 ABC Hobart: Carol Rääbus
Small pieces of cut up rope go into this DIY machine to be turned into filament.
Small pieces of cut up rope go into this DIY machine to be turned into filament.
A teacher from Tasmania has found a way to recycle marine rope offcuts and turn it into 3D printing filament.
Marcos Gogolin, a part-time teacher at TasTAFE, has a background in architectural design and sustainability. He has spent the last five years working out a way to take useless bits of plastic rope and turn them into something useful.
Shocked by the amount of waste in Western Australia during a visit there, Mr Gogolin took interest in the tonnes of small pieces of plastic ropes from fishing industries that were left along the beach.
Five months later he was given a 3D printer to develop courses with at school. Mr Gogolin figured if he could find a way to melt unwanted plastic rope into a thin, consistent filament for the printer, he would be able to reduce the amount of plastic going into landfill.
936 ABC Hobart: Carol Rääbus
Marcos Gogolin
Marcos Gogolin, the teacher behind the method of turning plastic wire into 3D printing filament
“Eventually I came up with the idea of using fishing rope as the filament for 3D printing,” said Mr Gogolin.
Using offcuts from Huon Aquaculture, he began experimenting with hot glue guns from the hardware shop. After damaging three guns, he decided to use a more advanced one of industrial quality.
With the help of his TasTAFE students, Mr Gogolin developed a machine that can turn the plastic offcuts into a working printer filament. Though he admitted the machine is hardly state-of-the-art, he does expect plastic rope to be used for 3D printing more commonly.
“It’s all a little bit dodgy,” Mr Gogolin said. “I’m thinking once we get going and have a business case, we can talk to some engineers and maybe develop a machine ourselves. There is too much plastic being produced, it’s crazy. It’s completely out of hand. I think it has to come to a point where to produce new plastic is so expensive, it’s not viable anymore and people will start to value the resource of the waste.”
