‘When I pass piles of fishing nets, I see piles of money’: a one man recycling revolution on the Cornish coast

<p>Determined to find a solution to the discarded plastic nets, Ian Falconer found a way to convert them into filament for 3D printing, for use in products from motorbikes to sunglasses</p><p>Ian Falconer kept thinking about the heaps of discarded plastic fishing nets he saw at Newlyn harbour near his home in Cornwall. “I thought ‘it’s such a waste’,” he says. “There has to be a better solution than it all going into landfill.”</p><p>Falconer, 52, who studied environmental and mining geology at university, came up with a plan: shredding and cleaning the worn out nets, melting the plastic down and converting it into filament to be used in 3D printing. He then built a “micro-factory” so that the filament could be made into useful stuff.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/fishing-nets-money-a-one-man-recycling-revolution-on-the-cornish-coast">Continue reading...</a>