Will.i.am partners with Coca-cola for eco-friendly 3D printer

Willliam
Will.i.am presenting the Ekocycle 3D printer

Will.i.am seems to be spending an awful lot of time in technology recently. As the chief creative officer of 3D Systems, he announced that the company he's backing will partner with Coca Cola's Ekocycle to deliver a 3D printer that uses recycled plastic bottles.

He said in a statement "We will make it cool to recycle, and we will make it cool to make products using recycled materials, this is the beginning of a more sustainable 3D-printed lifestyle. Waste is only waste if we waste it."

Ekocycle was launched in in 2011 and is backed by Will.i.am as well as a number of other organisations (like Adidas and NBA) and individuals.

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The printer will be available for sale in the US for $1.199 (around £700, AUD 1,250) and will use a filament cartridge that is partly made using plastic bottles.

A quarter of each cartridge will be made from "post-consumer recycled materials" and contain plastic from three 500ml PET bottles (presumably Coca Cola).

Users will get access to a free collection of 25 fashion, music and tech minded accessories, curated by will.i.am with fmobile printing capabilities via the company's own Cubify app.

3D models produced can be up to 6-inches on either axis (roughly 150mm), using a 70-micron process, in red, black, white and natural (transparent). These, as it happens, are the four component colours of Coca-cola products and logo.

Desire Athow
Managing Editor, TechRadar Pro

Désiré has been musing and writing about technology during a career spanning four decades. He dabbled in website builders and web hosting when DHTML and frames were in vogue and started narrating about the impact of technology on society just before the start of the Y2K hysteria at the turn of the last millennium.