Discarded mainframes, second-hand
scanners, and a solid amount of tinkering: These were the ingredients that
allowed a Togolese geographer to create the first entirely recycled 3D printer.
Recycling these materials, he explains, also helps fight against the worsening
electronic waste problem in Togo.
Sales of 3D printers, which can
print all kinds of objects using modelling or laser techniques, have boomed in
the past year. The market is currently worth 1.5 billion euros and could
increase to 6 billion euros by 2020. During this holiday season, several
companies are selling 3D printers for individual use at very low prices
Read and view more photos after the cut.
Afaté Gnikou, a geographer by
training, first saw a “Mendel”—an artisanal self-replicating 3D printer
—in August 2012 during a workshop in Lomé.
At first, the machine fascinated me
due to all the creative possibilities it offered. But I very quickly realized
that this type of machine was not accessible to everyone, because they are
built from printed pieces that were also made by 3D printers! Often, they need
to be ordered and imported from Europe, which ends up being very expensive. The
challenge I set for myself then was to create a 3D printer using only objects
that we have access to here in Togo.
Here in the capital Lomé, we have a
huge problem, which is also an issue in Ghana and Nigeria: Electronic waste.
There are loads of second-hand computers that come from Europe in containers
and that end up in our countries.
These machines are stacked in unregulated, open landfills. It’s hard to say how
many tonnes are in there, but it’s clear that the problem is only getting worse
with each passing year.
According to a recent report from Solving
the E-waste Problem, 50 million tonnes of discarded electronic and
electrical equipment were generated globally in 2012, which averages out to
about 7 kg per person. This influx of waste could reach 65 million tonnes in
2017. According to experts, somewhere between 50 to 85 percent of this waste
ends up in Nigeria, Ghana, and Togo. Furthermore, by 2017, Africa is expected
to generate more e-waste than the European Union.
Gnikou sought to respond to this
problem in his own way:
“I went hunting for old mainframes,
discarded scanners, connection bars, and components in the landfills of Lomé. I
basically took anything that could potentially be used to create the chassis
and the electronic part of the printer. It took me six months to develop the
first prototype. I received support from an incubator, WoeLab that
is located in Djidjolé, a lower-income neighbourhood in Lomé. They got
unemployed youths to come see me work and to get involved in the project.
Many people told us that what we’re
doing is very complicated, that it’s reserved for ‘the elite’. I have no
background in computer science; my studies were in literature. Building a model
like this is a question of will and creativity. The first object that we
printed was one that I had designed from A to Z on 3D modelling software: A pen
holder. On it, we had written “right to dream”, our motto from the beginning
We have finished the development
phase of the machine thanks to crowdfunding [WoeLab raised 4,316 euros online,
more than the 3,500 euros they were hoping to raise during
their campaign]. The machine can print plastic objects that range
from a few centimetres to a metre in length. We recently sold our first printer
during an innovation fair in
Abidjan.
Nonetheless, we are still in a
period where we need funding to make the machine more financially accessible:
Currently, we are selling it at 600 euros so as not to lose money [this is
cheaper than the high-end machines sold in Europe, but more expensive than some
American machines].
We aim to create a series of such
machines, launch training workshops and put partnerships in place
with Internet cafés in order to make
their use more democratic. Once you have the machine and know how to use it,
all you need to do is download models online, and after that, creating objects
is as easy as opening a PDF file!
.
I launched this project by myself from home, for fun. But I
only started realising its potential reach when I saw people around me get very
excited, and quote Barack Obama’s speech [during his State of the Union speech
last February, the US president said that 3D printers would mark the start of a
“new industrial revolution”]. If we can help bring this revolution along and
not have to wait years before being able to benefit from it, that would be a
great source of pride for me.
WoeLab, which supported Afaté in
developing his recycled 3D printer, believes that the project could create up
to 15,000 jobs. If you are interested in supporting their project, you can
contact them at woelabo@gmail.com or via their Facebook page.
Extracts from France24.
No comments:
Post a Comment