ReCreateIt, a net-zero manufacturing lab, is building a more circular economy by reducing landfill waste. Partnered with the Austin Habitat for Humanity ReStores, ReCreateIt enables low-income homeowners to design sustainable home goods 3D printed directly from recycled plastic waste.

ReCreateIt is building a more circular economy through the recycling and reuse of over 10,000 lbs of plastic waste otherwise destined for a landfill. This project brings together a collaborative team of researchers, manufacturers, and community leaders to creatively tackle plastic waste pollution.

The GigabotX large-format 3D printer manufacturers with pelletized and granulated plastics. The ReCreateIt Gigalab net-zero manufacturing lab, built sustainably from a modified shipping container, houses the 3D printers as well as a granulator for grinding up plastics and a dryer for removing moisture from material- all the equipment needed to create high value items from recycled plastic in low-income communities where it’s needed most.

ReCreateIt customers work with Austin Habitat for Humanity ReStores to fabricate their own functional home goods from recycled materials. Using an interactive design tool, customers can select their favorite home goods or customize them with an intuitive, web-based interface that modifies and refines designs in real time in response to customer preferences. The tool is powered by machine learning algorithms that ensure structural integrity and tally sustainability benefits without requiring any engineering expertise from the customer.

A sustainability dashboard collects and communicates the environmental impacts of this work fabricating from locally-sourced recycled materials and expresses them in easily interpretable metrics, such as the number of water bottles saved from the landfill.

The team continually engages in polymer science and engineering research to enhance the printability of recycled materials while ensuring the structural integrity of 3D printed parts. For example, all of the prototype chairs and stools printed by the team to date, even those with apparent imperfections, support at least 500 lbs of weight. Research into combining different plastics together or adding naturally sourced additives to improve results is distributed in a public database, thereby contributing to the knowledge base that will transition industry to more sustainable manufacturing methods.