Plastic waste is one of the big disasters of the 21st century and finding ways to fight it should be in everybody’s minds.
A few years ago a brilliant Dutch designer Dave Hakkens conceived a set of machines to deal with plastic recycling on a community scale. These machines transform the plastic waste in little flakes and then process these thought heat and compression into any kind of useful objects.
The blueprints for the machines are distributed on an open-source licence meaning that they are free to use and be modified by anyone.
I’ve been wanting to build these machines for a long time and finally managed to get commissioned by a community group in Wales to build two of them. The injection moulder and the compression.
Edit 2020 : Being very happy with the two first machines, the same organisation asked me to build the shredder for them as well!
The oven with it’s new controller 
Welding helpers 
The compression frame almost complete 
Clever feet 
Injection barrel 
Injection frame 
Brother and sister? 
The injection moulder with the electronics 
Complete set of PP machines 
The Shredder design 
Laser cut blades for the shredder 
Machining the shaft on a big lathe 
Bearings 
Machined hex shaft 
That’s a big motor! 
Electronics box 
Taking the opportunity to learn some Sketchup skills 
Shredder almost finished 
Safety switch, this machine is a beast! 
Shredder in red
I’m currently in discussion with a few local organisations to build more of these machines, let me know if you are also interested in creating a local plastic recycling centre for your community.
More info : Precious Plastic
Jean Goubert 
I’m Climate Ambassador for Dorset Federation of Women’s Institutes could you please tell me the up to date position with these amazing machines?
Hello Carol,
What would you like to know exactly? I’ve build these machines for a community organisation based in South Wales. The machines are working well. Would you be interested in setting up a Precious Plastic workspace down in Dorset?