Problem:

Boats built of glass-fibre reinforced plastic are very expensive to recycle and usually end up as carcasses in some muddy estuary.

Solution:

The Netherlands
Over in Friesland and Omrin, in August 2019, 10XL of Dordrecht teamed up with Frisian waste management company Morssinkhof in the creation of a 3D printed sloop made out of recycled polypropylene.

The 20ft (6m) boat was printed by a robotic arm with six axes, taking around 24 hours to create. It belongs to the municipality of Súdwest-Fryslân. Now that the company has more or less perfected the design, they are planning to open a ship building factory in Friesland.

USA
Two months later, the University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center used the world’s largest prototype polymer 3D printer to create the 25 ft (7.6 m), 5,000 lb (2,268 kg) ship, dubbed 3Dirigo. At the end of the event, the team tested the seaworthiness of its boat in UMaine’s Alfond W2 Ocean Engineering Laboratory, which features a multidirectional wave basin and a high-performance wind machine.

If pushed to its limits, the 3D printer can create objects up to 100 ft. long, 22 ft. wide, and 10 ft. high.(30m x 6.7m x 3 m) (composites.umaine.edu)

Bioplastics News, July 9, 2018 ; “Frisian companies helping create 3D printed boat from recycled plastic,” The Northern Times, August 12, 2019.

Discover solution: the wonders of PET

Support 366solutions on Patreon and receive the ‘366solutions Insider Newsletter’ with updates on the monthly progress and successes of published solutions.