University of Wisconsin-Stout students snipped compostable plastic knives, forks, spoons and coffee cup lids from University Dining into bits, getting ready to melt them and recycle them into new items at the Discovery Center FabLab.
The hands-on workshop was part of a visiting Russian scholars program with Vladimir Kuznetsov, founder of the fab lab Moscow, and Artem Korotkov, a doctoral student and researcher from the National University of Science and Technology MISIS in Moscow. The two visited UW-Stout for two weeks leaving March 14.
Kuznetsov talked about how some plastics can be recycled in a fab lab and become new objects.
Students took the shredded utensils and leftover plastic filament used in 3D printers and melted the plastics with a heat press. Then a laser printer was used to cut out items such as a state of Wisconsin shape or the Stout logo.
HEAD PHOTO: Vladimir Kuznetsov, founder of the fab lab Moscow, demonstrates how to recycle plastics into other objects in the UW-Stout Discovery Center Fab Lab.
