R3direct Makes 3D Printed Monument from Waste

R3direct used WASP 3D printers to create a statue from post-consumer recycled waste. The materials were supplied by Revet, and the statue was designed by Edoardo Malagigi, based on the 1973 sculpture called Marco Cavallo. The original Marco Cavallo was intended to highlight the “rights of the most fragile” and was an installation of a papier-mâché horse by an Italian group of artists. The work was created in collaboration with patients from a psychiatric hospital and aimed to draw attention to the treatment of patients in mental institutions. The 1973 piece was inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s sketches for a monument to Francesco Sforza. Now, a group of artists is creating a 21st-century Marco Cavallo, which again seeks to prompt reflection on mental health and the environment.

The waste for the monument was collected from the grounds of the San Salvi gardens, the site of a former church and mental hospital that has long since been opened to the public. The sculpture was made using two WASP 3MT HDP printers. The 3MT HDP is a granulate 3D printer with a 1m by 1m build volume and can print large objects at 100 mm/s using a continuous feed system. The enclosed system, equipped with a heated chamber and HEPA filters, also features FIRECAP technology, allowing for a localized, moving heated zone of up to 200°C. This enables the chamber to maintain an optimal temperature for the material while concentrating heat in specific areas, which helps reduce electricity usage. It improves layer adhesion, enhances surface quality, and reduces warping.

Printed by R3direct, the statue was made from materials found at the San Salvi complex and has been installed there as well. The complex, once an asylum, has now become a healthy space for everyone, a place for walking and reflection. Along with mental health, the monument is intended to prompt reflection on pollution. Revet is the company that sorted the materials and converted the waste into pellets. WASP, Revet, and R3direct aim to refine this process to enable more production using sustainable waste materials.

It’s easy to see how other government bodies and artists could be inspired by this initiative. It offers an extremely low environmental cost solution. Instead of using recycled materials sourced from far away, local materials are utilized, significantly reducing CO2 emissions in the process. Conceptually, it’s also inspiring to transform local waste into something meaningful. I’d love to see a sculpture representing the amount of waste a single person generates per year—it would visually drive home the impact and the need for change.

I truly hope WASP and its partners are onto a sustainable process that can be replicated globally. If WASP could sell complete recycling and compounding equipment with its printers, it would allow anyone, anywhere, to create materials locally. This would likely appeal to many designers and artists. Additionally, having local recycling systems capable of working with local materials could provide a very cost-effective way to manufacture products. It might even be cheaper than using virgin materials, making local goods both eco-friendly and financially viable.

Up until now, much of the local waste, like PE or PETG, hasn’t been easy to repurpose. Locally available plastics are often unsuitable or difficult to print with (such as HDPE or PE), or the cost of sorting through them has been prohibitive. The varying MFI of different PETG grades also makes it challenging to print. Moreover, getting uniform material or pellets that function well has been difficult, and it typically requires adding about 30% virgin material to ensure good results.

If WASP can overcome these obstacles with this system, they could have a real winner of a product. A fully integrated waste-to-pellet system would not only benefit the environment but also have strong commercial potential.