this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2024
161 points (98.2% liked)
Asklemmy
43851 readers
1645 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Go to a grocery store, bring your metal containers to the grocery, get them autoclaved while shopping, and get em filled up with your rice/cereals/juice/etc.
Edit: The below is a bad idea unless new materials are found, see comment thread.
Also, SLA Printing for ceramics is already possible, just expensive for now. Once we figure out how to do that sustainability and in a foodsafe manner, we could just print our single-use cups and dishes from a slurry.
Yeah, finding the gunk from a bone dry ceramic cup left in random places outside would suck, but nature would be able to reclaim it as easy as any random dirt clod. (Well, not as quick in the short term, but when it comes to materials)
One could potentially even just rinse out the clay, stick it in some water, and with some elbow grease and effort, process it into actual, useable ceramics. Depending on the formulation required for the SLA process, of course.
I wonder what happens to ceramic when it degrades over time. Does it become microscopic pieces?
Well, in this hypothetical I'm proposing, there is no superheating involved- just printing, and being set to dry.
Ceramics get completely rigid, but relatively fragile in this state, which would be sufficient for a single use material, but if they're soaked for long enough, would dissolve.
The term is "Bone Dry" and specifically how to reclaim bone dry clay- that'd probably give you an idea on how it breaks down/dissolves.
there would be no straightforward way to get it back into print media unless there were recycling centers, but if one cleaned the food matter off well, in theory it could be standard clay people could use.
Imagine collecting food cup clay and making it into bricks for public projects.
As a former ceramic artist I would be very wary of this solution. Bone dry clay is way too fragile to survive transportation unless very carefully packed. Potentially an air dry paper clay could work but even then it isn't very durable.
As you mentioned in your comment, the minute bone dry clay touches liquid it starts to slake down. So you would end up with clay mush in your food and the structure would start to fall apart.
Additionally, silica dust from bone dry clay is really bad for you. Probably not very likely to effect the occasional consumer but people interacting with it often would be at an elevated risk for lung issues.
Interesting, I was under the impression that clay was inert when ingested.
The transportation and dust would be lessened from the printing process if it were done by the individual, but if what you say is true, then the whole idea is worthless unless there's an alternative material available.
Most clay is likely safe to ingest. However the willingness of customers to ingest clay may vary and the quantity of clay may impart a flavor on the product.
I'm also not sold on the printing process. Ceramic is strongest when the clay platelets are aligned and in a 3d printing process there are many layers. Each of the layers introduces a weak point that is likely to crack in drying or use. Ceramics already have quite efficient methods for production primarily slipcasting and extrusion. In these methods pieces are formed without "joins".
I'm also not convinced printing it at home would be feasible for mass production/adoption.
That being said it is an interesting idea. I think you could probably make single use, unglazed, low-fire ware like Indian Bhar. Which could get recycled into aggregate. Firing adds emissions back into the process though and I'm not sure where that ranks compared to something with an existing supply chain like paper alternatives.
I am talking about though is SLA printing though- resin printing, but without the resin, basically.
Which is why I think its more feasible than just extrusion printing on principle. The layers are incredibly thin, with no extrusion involved, and no exposure to air until well after the layers are formed.
Hmm, that's interesting. I'd be curious in how that would be cured and how the layers would stick together. Plaster might be interesting too since it has a faster setting period than clay.