WASP has participated as a technical sponsor in this brilliant project Feel the Peel thanks to which you can drink an orange juice from an orange peel cup. In order to create the orange peel cups, the bioplastic is heated and melted to form 3D printing filament.
The 3D printer Delta WASP 2040 INDUSTRIAL 4.0 resides in the middle of the juice bar. Visitors can watch as their cup is created and then filled with juice.
“The principle of circularity is a must for today’s objects,” explains Carlo Ratti. “Working with Eni, we tried to show circularity in a very tangible way, by developing a machine that helps us to understand how oranges can be used well beyond their juice.”
After the drink is finished, the cup can be recycled. It could potentially be broken down and re-made into another cup to keep the circular economy going. Technically the “Feel the Peel” prototype is a 3-meter high orange squeezer machine, topped by a dome filled with 1,500 oranges. When someone orders a juice, oranges slide down into the squeezer. Juice is produced on one side. On the other side, peels are stored and transformed into bioplastic through drying and milling.
The bioplastic is heated and melted and used to feed a Delta WASP 2040 INDUSTRIAL 4.0 3D printer incorporated into the system to produce sustainable cups, which in turn can be used to drink orange juice.
WASP has already printed food and knows that it will take research and time to talk about ready processes. However, we liked the idea of Carlo Ratti and participated in the proposed project for our general vision linked to the circular economy.
Gluten Free Corner: 3D printing for people with celiac disease
WASP already printed food in 2017 and is aware of the complexity of this area. We successfully printed gluten-free dought for people with celiac disease: this project is called Gluten Free Corner.
With the Gluten Free Corner it will be possible to 3D print food in specific calorie portions, selecting foods so that they can suit any customized diet and any daily single nutritional need without food waste nor during the preparation process. The 3D printing in food application too, allows a new interpretation of the nutrition subject, giving to patisserie the possibility to become a trial field where it will be possible to create new shapes and foods otherwise impossible in the traditional kitchen.
RIGENERA Project: wind turbines 3D printed from recycled polypropylene
WASP also presented at the Maker Faire 2019 in Rome a circular economy process called RIGENERA that from the waste plastic recovered through 3D printing creates wind turbines to generate electricity.
The material used for 3D printing with Delta WASP 3MT INDUSTRIAL 4.0 is 100% recycled polypropylene pellet. The RIGENERA project as the Feel the Peel project responds to one of the central contemporary topics linked to common health and wellness: the recycling of materials through 3D printing.