Where do we get our materials from?
Our main material for our products is an Eco Plastic called Polylactic acid, or PLA for short. We have written another blog going into detail as to why we use this material and what makes it an Eco Plastic. You can find that blog here: https://buttercuppetproducts.co.uk/blogs/aspects-of-3d-printing/what-is-pla-and-why-is-it-an-eco-plastic
Our supplier is a Manchester based company called 3DQF who manufacture all of their products in house only 55 miles from where we are based. Their PLA is super high quality, comes in a huge range of colours and gives us the perfect platform to ensure our products are as high quality as possible.
One of the best things about 3DQF is that they manufacture their PLA in the UK. The reason this is such a big positive is that the 3D printing industry relies heavily on manufacturing filament overseas in China which is far from Eco-Freindly.
Most PLA filament manufacturers also produce their filament on plastic rolls and the majority of them have no markings to indicate what plastic the reels are, meaning they cannot be recyclable.
3DQF uses cardboard rolls which is great as they are super easy to recycle meaning we can have confidence everything on the roll of PLA filament is either getting used to create our products or being recycled.
If you want to get into 3D printing yourselves, we highly recommend using 3DQF for your PLA filament. You can find them here: https://www.3dqf.co.uk/
Leave a comment