Determined to find a solution to the discarded plastic nets, Ian Falconer found a way to convert them into filament for 3D printing, for use in products from motorbikes to sunglasses
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an Falconer kept thinking about the heaps of discarded plastic fishing nets he saw at Newlyn harbour near his home in Cornwall. “I thought ‘it’s such a waste’,” he says. “There has to be a better solution than it all going into landfill.”
Falconer, 52, who studied environmental and mining geology at university, came up with a plan: shredding and cleaning the worn out nets, melting the plastic down and converting it into filament to be used in 3D printing. He then built a “micro-factory” so that the filament could be made into useful stuff.
“Every year, up to 1m tonnes of fishing nets are discarded,” he says. “Most of that ends up in landfill or is burned, or worse still finds its way back into the oceans. This showed there was another way for some of that material.”
