Meet Benjamin Davis, 16, who turned 3D printer waste into reusable filament

A failed 3D print typically goes straight to the trash with a tangle of plastic filament, a misshapen object or a handful of scraps that no longer feel useful. For 16-year-old Benjamin Davis, those leftovers were something else altogether. For Davis, they were raw material, waiting for another chance. The Massachusetts high school student spent hundreds of hours developing a small recycling system to convert discarded 3D-printing plastic into usable filament. His invention addressed a growing waste problem and won him $75,000 at one of the world’s largest science competitions, states an online report by the Society for Science.Recycling plastic scraps into filamentDavis, a student at Bishop Feehan High School in Attleboro, Massachusetts, built the machine as part of his science research project. The system uses waste plastic, including waste generated during 3D printing and converts it into filament that can again be fed into a 3D printer.