Beer by-products used in 3D printing

Wasting a good beer is looked down upon by most, but what about wasting beer waste? While the by-products of brewing are sometimes on-sold as animal feed, eco company 3Dom claims that much of the spent grain brewers produce ends up in landfill – and they’ve found a way to convert this waste into the raw material used in 3D printing.

The technology behind 3D printing has recently become affordable and far more widespread, allowing amateur designers to create their own objects – anything from tools, to jewellery – easily at home. However, the raw materials – the filament that the printers melt and build up into 3D shapes – are typically made from unsustainable oil-based plastics.

3Dom’s coloured filament – cheekily branded as Buzzed – is made from spent grain, giving objects made from it an attractive golden colour, and natural look. The company has also previously used coffee grounds to make a 3D printing filament called Wound Up, which had the unique quality of giving a coffee scent to anything it was made into.