Powered by ICAM, the International Conference on Advanced Manufacturing.
Learn more and register.
Episode 2: ReCreateIt: Turning Plastic Waste into Local Manufacturing
Plastic waste is usually treated as a disposal problem. In Austin, Texas, a team is treating it as a local manufacturing opportunity.
In this episode of Manufacturing Unlimited, host Peter Zelinski visits a Habitat for Humanity ReStore where the ReCreateIt initiative is transforming discarded plastic into usable household goods through large-format 3D printing. Plastic items that cannot be resold are sorted, cleaned, ground into flakes, and fed directly into a Re3D Gigabot X printer to produce stools, tables, vases, lampshades, and other products sold in the store.
The episode features Carolyn Seepersad of Georgia Tech, who presented the work at the ASTM International Conference on Advanced Manufacturing (ICAM 2025), along with Britney Blann, ReCreateIt Project Director at the ReStore. Together, they show how ReCreateIt is building a manufacturing process inside a retail and donation environment, creating a modular model that could be deployed wherever plastic waste accumulates.
ReCreateIt brings together contributions from Re3D, Georgia Tech, Habitat for Humanity ReStore, Western Sydney University, the University of Wollongong Australia, and the University of Texas at Austin. The project demonstrates how advanced manufacturing can support circular production, workforce development, community-scale recycling, and new product creation from materials that might otherwise end up in landfills.
Presented by ASTM International and ICAM, Manufacturing Unlimited highlights technologies seen at ICAM and explores how they are pushing back the barriers that limit what manufacturing can do.
Watch Episode 2 to see how waste plastic can become a production stream, and how local manufacturing could begin right where discarded material is already piling up.
Featuring
Carolyn Seepersad, Georgia Tech
Britney Blann, ReCreateIt
Hosted by Peter Zelinski
