When people imagine a 3D printer, most think of metal or wood, however, a Canadian company called Genecis, have taken tossed out food particles and created a revolutionary material that is used for printing. There are many companies that use a these printer to help with manufacturing needs, but their waste is used resourcefully. However, what happens to the companies that make food and what do they do with their waste? Genecis has created a way to reuse these unwanted food particles to better serve society. They came up with the idea to collect all the wasted materials and tossed out food to make a new innovative material for printing. They turn the food particles into a biodegradable plastic, and with that material invented, they have found a new way to implement it into packaging and additional printing fiber.
Creating New Materials
They share that they use a special bacteria recipe that helps keep the chemicals together. To top their new invention that can be cost saving and chemically reducing compared to the normal plastic that is used in everyday appliances. They share that their new invention has the ability to degrade over the course of a year; however, they are still under the works of getting the product commercialized.
The company started with a few students from the University of Toronto who came up with the idea to merge polyhydroxyalkanoates with PLA to form the plastic. This bacteria recipe allows the 3D printers to be cost-effective and efficient. They share that they have future goals to develop their recipe into the cosmetics and health industries. With creating this new material they hope to help companies all around the world reduce costs of waste disposal as well as overhead packaging materials.
For a Healthier World
Currently, they are working on improving the results of the material through vigorous testing. They visualize a healthier world as well as a society that will start living greener. They have received some funding through Hatchery Demo Day, which they plan to use to build a larger version of the materials to focus on a bigger production scale for more clients. They also have received a few different awards for their achievements from the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs. As they continue to expand and grow, they plan on further developing the material to perfection, so that many can benefit from its usages.