Here’s a pretty awesome idea: a team of students from the Victoria University of Wellington are working on a device to turn plastic trash into 3d printable plastic stock! Their website doesn’t seem to have much information about the process, but it appears that the process involves grinding up HDPE plastic, then pushing them into a heated pipe to create plastic cord.

MakerBot has revolutionized open source printing by bringing it straight to your home at an affordable cost. But what if you could also supply your own material for 3D printing by using recycled materials? The creators of this blog represent a group of students working to build an attachment for the MakeBot that will allow for just this.

Our RecycleBOT will grind and melt your milk bottles, then extrude them at an appropriate circumference for use with the Makerbot. Let’s get to printing.

[via makerbot]