Filabot promises to help turn your plastic crap into 3-D printed fanciness, alleviating one of the biggest sustainability problems for 3-D printing.

Just over a year ago, Tyler McNaney was on break from college. "I was surfing the internet as most college kids do, and I saw a video of 3-D printing," he says. "I was amazed and I learned all I could about it." Soon after, he owned one of his own. Not much longer after that, he decided he wanted to make his own filament for it. Sadly, he was low on cash. So he launched Filabot on Kickstarter.

For desktop 3-D printers to work, they need some kind of material to work with. Most contemporary printers use plastic filament, available in spools from various suppliers. Filabot reduces the need for that stuff. Instead you can grind up household plastics or even past projects to make new lines.

Think a meat grinder on top of a pasta maker and you get the general idea. "Plastic extrusion is nothing new," says McNaney in the Kickstarter pitch video. "The only thing we'd like to do is adapt it to the desktop environment."

The need for something like this is enormous. The whole point of 3-D printing is that you can do rapid prototyping and customization of parts. This means that you can expect any given project to have lots of unwanted prototypes, to say nothing of failed prints or other errors. Go into any vibrant makerspace and you'll find dozens of demo objects, broken parts and failed experiment lying around, the detritus of tinkering with objects. It's similar to how in the early days of computerized workspaces, the "paperless office" resulted in more paper being consumed as workers reprinted documents over and over.

"I am working on this because this is the next system that is needed for at-home manufacturing," says McNaney. "3-D printing is in its infancy, and when coupled with a Filabot a 3-D printer will be a complete closed-loop recycling system on your desk, office or school. I also see a lot of potential for helping out third-world countries. With a Filabot and a 3-D printer people can now make things as simple as a fork or cup."

Unlike some of the more outlandish promises about how 3-D printing might save the world, McNaney's project has a point. The world is awash in disposable plastic containers like soda and water bottles. Wouldn't it be wonderful if that junk could be re-used on site?

McNaney says the team is working on testing and documenting the range of plastic that will work. "The range of materials keeps growing. Filabot is expected to process most of the thermoplastics," he says. "So far the plastics that work are HDPE, LDPE, ABS, NYLON. More to come on the different types that work." They don't process PVC because of toxicity concerns.

The project was funded in January 2012. A year later, McNaney says they're getting ready to launch. "Right now we have the working system, but we are making this working system production-ready." This means preparing the enclosures and extruder parts for final assembly.

Just before the holidays, McNaney released an update showing how even imperfectly made filaments worked fine when passed through a printer. "I was surprised to find that air bubbles and undersized diameter do not really affect the outcome of the part," he says.

Looking ahead, McNaney says he hopes that advancements in 3-D printer extruders will allow for an even bigger range of plastics and a higher tolerance for imperfect filaments.

Meanwhile, maybe it's time to start saving up your plastic junk.