Okabashi Brands (Buford, GA) makes and sells shoes and sandals — mostly flip-flops —that are made of the company’s Microplast proprietary blend of plastic material. The footwear is colorful, they look cool, and thanks to the company’s concern for the environment, wearing a pair makes you one of they eco-friendliest people around — below the ankles.

One Okabashi customer’s well-protected flip-flops.

Okabashi has created a closed-loop recycling system for its shoes and for the material it uses to make them. Virtually nothing is wasted and virtually none of its material goes to a landfill—ever. For instance, production scrap is fed to a grinder and then used to make new flip-flops and shoes.

But to be a fullyclosed-loop recycling system, the post-consumer waste, in this case shoes and sandals, must be recycled as well. So Okabashi created a system aimed at keeping its shoes out of landfills.

Okabashi customers, who sound more like fans, say the sandals and shoes are so comfortable that they wear them as often as they can. Naturally, they will wear out, but when they do the user simply sends them back to the factory in Buford, Georgia. To encourage the return of used-up shoes, Okabashi gives a coupon toward the purchase of a new pair.

Returned footwear is inspected for contaminants, then like production scrap, is sent into a grinder, softened and returned to the production line for its next life. Post-consumer and production scrap makes up 15 to 25 percent of a pair of new Okabashi shoes.

Okabashi offers various styles, and recycles them all.

Alternatively, Okabashi advises customers that a well-worn pair can also be recycled locally by the owner, and suggests contacting 1800recycling.com to find a nearby recycling location that takes #3 material, the Resin Identification Code (RIC) for PVC/Vinyl. Does that give away the secret of the company’s proprietary Microplast material? No. Basic PVC is rigid, and wearers of these sandals rave about how comfortable they are. The secret is how that’s achieved.

The company says that last year alone it was able to regrind and reuse over 100,000 pounds of scrap material, which kept the equivalent of 10 tractor-trailer loads of waste material out of the landfills.

In a CNN video report on Okabashi Brands, the company’s VP marketing, Brad Laporte, said the company sends nothing into oceans or landfills. He also mentioned that, since Okabashi in one way or another uses virtually 100 percent of the raw material it works with, its costs are lower, which helps explain why almost all the company’s shoes and sandals cost less than $20.

For that low price Okabashi gives a lot more than good looks and recyclability. The shoes and sandals are anti-microbial, said to help arthritis sufferers, and are endorsed by the American Chiropractic Association. They have Japanese-inspired massaging insoles and a real arch, are dishwasher-safe (it sanitizes them), carry a two-year guarantee, and are vegan-friendly.

Another feature appreciated by customers is that all the shoes and flip-flops are “Made in the USA” at the Buford factory. There are good economic reasons for that, but also some solid environmental benefits. The average shipping distance for Okabashi shoes is about 7 percent that of the average imported shoe, a difference of almost 10,000 miles, which translates into much less greenhouse gas in the air.

SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade Association is leading a coalition of North American plastics associations in the launch of a line of branded clothing made from recycled plastic that will work as uniforms, business gifts, gear for meetings, trade shows and other events.

The brand name is resinGEAR and the other plastics associations joining SPI in this effort are the Canadian Plastics Industry Association (CPIA), the Plastic Pipe Institute (PPI) and the Western Plastics Association (WPA). Part of the proceeds from sale of the clothing and other gear will go back to the associations to help support their sustainability programs.

SPI President and CEO William R. Carteaux said, “Since we expanded our organization’s mission to include the promotion of zero waste strategies, SPI has been seeking innovative ways to show we ‘walk the walk.’” He added that resinGEAR, along with SPI’s other sustainability and recycling initiatives, visibly shows the North American plastics industry’s dedication to keeping its products out of landfills, as well as pushing sustainable manufacturing. The resinGEAR program will generate funding for future SPI sustainability initiatives.

The colorful (to say the least) resinGEAR items you see with this post are a small sample of the executive, promotional, uniform, and sports gear in the line, which includes many more shirts, plus jackets, hats, tote bags, and more. Most of the items are available in more colors than what you see on this page, including white, gray, black, and navy blue.

The clothing and other resinGEAR items can be customized and branded with the buyer’s logo and company name, and the variety of choices means everyone connected with a company, from top managers to production staff to customers can visually demonstrate the company’s sustainability commitment. The website describes the recycled content in more detail.

All the resinGEAR merchandise is made in the USA or Canada, and not only is the clothing made from recycled plastic, but it also is itself recyclable.

If you attended one of SPI’s meetings this spring you saw samples of resinGEAR, most likely the shirts pictured on this page. I have one in that brilliant orange color and I like it. It’s comfortable and a great way to make a statement in favor of recycling plastic, and as the line from Mel Brooks’ film The Producers puts it, if you got it, flaunt it.

Many articles about plastics on environmental websites and in mass media often state flatly that polystyrene foam, or even that all polystyrene cannot be recycled, which is the opposite of the truth. By way of proof, a recent article by Jessica Holbrook of Plastics News described Dart Container Corporation’s programs to increase recycling of EPS (expanded polystyrene) foam, and noted that Dart has been recycling EPS foam for about 20 years. (Note: EPS is commonly but incorrectly called Styrofoam, which is a Dow Chemical trademark for its building insulation.)

Dart (Mason, MI) is one of the largest producers of EPS foam food packaging and serving ware worldwide, and a major recycler of EPS as well. The company annually collects more than 1.5 million pounds of post-consumer polystyrene foam and since 1998 has recycled more than 60 million pounds.

Those are big numbers, but considering that EPS is about 95% air, the mass of what Dart recycles is, well, massive. The post-consumer EPS that Dart accepts and recycles at 18 of its plants worldwide (13 in North America) is subsequently used to make picture frames, building insulation, lumber and much more.

Holbrook spoke with Michael Westerfield, corporate director of recycling programs at Dart, and what comes through most clearly is the depth and breadth of Dart’s recycling program. Dart has many ways to make it easy for users of foam products to recycle them.

Dart Container’s PS foam recycling support includes collection/shipping containers such as this one.

For example, Dart’s Recycla-Pak program equips users of foam cups with corrugated recycling bins and everything else needed for collecting and returning foam cups to Dart for recycling, including pre-paid shipping. The company’s CARE program—Cups Are REcyclable—helps high volume users of foam food service items separate them from other materials, consolidate the collected material, and arrange to have it recycled.

The CARE program offers a densifier—a piece of equipment that compacts (densifies) large quantities of foam products into small, shippable units. That reduces the space used to store collected foam, the frequency of material pick-ups, and since it dramatically increases the pounds of foam in a truckload, it reduces the carbon footprint of the total recycling process.

Dart offers resources that simplify foam recycling to every type of EPS user, including consumers and local governments. In recent years, the company has expanded its support of curbside collection. Los Angeles began its first foam-recycling project in 2007 and today more than 65 California cities have access to curbside EPS recycling.

Dart’s comprehensive approach to foam recycling also can be seen in its internal operations. A recent regional dinner of SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade Association featured a plant tour of Dart’s 1.6 million sq. ft. Waxahachie, TX facility, including the recycling center that’s open to the public. Dart is an SPI member company. Those who toured the facility said they were very impressed by the technology and the overall organization.

In the Plastics News article, Dart’s Westerfield says, “Most people, when you talk to the general public, don’t even know foam is recyclable. The fact that we’ve overcome that and grown in such a short period of time, that’s very positive.” Dart’s efforts have not gone unnoticed. Earlier this year, the EPS Industry Alliance gave Dart Container its Excellence in EPS Recycling Award for “…extraordinary commitment to the advancement of expanded polystyrene recycling.”

Full Plastics News article here.

Until now, 3D printing of objects, most often using plastic materials, has taken place largely on a flat surface inside a closed chamber, with material added layer by layer and fused to create a solid object, all driven by a computer design file. But now a team of students at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) in Barcelona, Spain has taken 3D printing (additive manufacturing) ’outside the box’ — literally.

Anti-Gravity Object modeling is a departure from current 3D printing technology.

Petr Novikov and Saša Jokić of the IAAC created Mataerial, a new additive manufacturing process that prints plastic as a rod that sticks to horizontal, vertical, smooth or irregular surfaces and can be extended without the need for additional support structures.

The two students designed the equipment to carry out the Mataerial process during their internship at the Joris Laarman Lab in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. They equipped a multi-axis industrial robot with a nozzle that extrudes the 3D plastic rods. A computer design file dictates the shape and direction of the rods, just as with a flatbed 3D printer.

A key innovation with respect to current 3D printers is that “Anti-Gravity Object Modeling,” as the designers call it, uses two-component thermosetting polymer rather than the thermoplastic polymer used in flat 3D printers.

Thermoplastic materials enter a mold or extrusion die hot and harden as they cool. Conversely, thermoset materials solidify as they are heated. In this case, the chemical reaction between two unidentified components causes the material to solidify as it exits the nozzle, creating rods solid enough to form unsupported hanging curves.

The video below shows the process in operation. Extrusion speed for this process depends on factors including the material and the thickness of the extruded rod. In the video, the extrusion rate was about a meter in three minutes, however the video is played at 3X actual speed to show the process more quickly.

The happy little guy above is Kaiba Gionfriddo, 19 months old, having fun with every breath he takes, but if a brilliant medical team had not placed a 3D-printed plastic splint onto his bronchial airway to hold it open, it’s unlikely he would be alive today.

Kaiba was born with a rare condition called tracheobronchomalacia, which causes the airways to be weak and prone to collapse. Additionally, some of the arteries around his heart were malformed; encircling the trachea tightly enough to compress the airway.

Sadly, most parents only become aware of this when their child suddenly stops breathing and dies. Baby Kaiba stopped breathing and turned blue in a restaurant when he was six weeks old. His father, Bryan Gionfriddo, used CPR to revive him, but the episodes continued and Kaiba was put on a breathing machine when he was two months old. Despite the best treatments available, it was virtually certain that he would die soon.

Kaiba’s doctor in Youngstown, Ohio had learned that doctors at the University of Michigan were developing a solution for this problem and contacted them. The UM doctors’ solution was to put a tubular device around the trachea that would hold it open. The tube/scaffold/splint has small holes the surgeon can use to suture it in place.

Since this would be the first time the device was used on a human, the doctors requested and received special permission to proceed from their school’s advisory board and the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA).

University of Michigan doctors made a model of the trachea and then built the plastic splint using a 3D bioprinter.

The medical team made a model of Kaiba’s trachea and, using a program they developed, designed the tubular scaffold. The bioplastic material they used to build the scaffold on their 3D bioprinter is called polycaprolactone (PCL), a polymer approved by the FDA to fill small holes in the skull. The bioprinter melts the powder material and then builds the designed shape layer by micro-thin layer. The doctors made many of them in different sizes.

In February of 2012 the U. of Michigan surgical team carefully rearranged Kaiba’s twisted heart arteries and trachea, and then carefully placed the splint. And as soon as the splint was put in, the little lungs began moving up and down for the first time. The doctors say that in three years the material will be completely reabsorbed and excreted by the body, and the airways will be able to function on their own.

Kaiba went home three weeks after the surgery and has not had a breathing crisis since. His parents say he is learning how to get around and is being spoiled by his 6-year-old brother and 11-year-old sister.

The new procedure using the splint made by 3D printing  plastic material was made public this week by the medical team at the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI via an article in the New England Journal of Medicine. There is now hope for children born with this rare condition, where previously there was virtually none.

Polycaprolactone is a biodegradable polyester material, and the PCL used in 3D printing — also known as additive manufacturing (AM) — is a special grade of the material. Probably the most common use of PCL is in the manufacturing of polyurethane materials, where it helps achieve good water, oil, solvent, and chlorine resistance. It is also added to other resins to improve their processing and certain end-product properties, for example impact resistance.