Last week the NY Times printed the above article about a 6 year old who was able to replace his right hand with a plastic prosthetic. This is obviously good news for people with disabilities. But when reading the article, I kept remembering our class discussion on Monday. Someone had asked “Shouldn’t we focus our efforts on stopping the use of plastics instead of limiting the use?” I wonder how these types of plastics can impact our future.
In the article, Lucas Abraham was born with a rare disorder that left his right hand malformed. This past month the University of Louisville and e-NABLE created a working prosthetic right hand for him using 3D printing. The bioengineering students at the university worked with e-NABLE, a group that helps create prosthetics. By using 3D printing they were able to lower the cost of the whole process and the plastic that they used is similar to the ones in Lego blocks. This allows for the prosthetics to be produced in various colors.
The plastic used in Lego toys are not sustainable. In fact earlier this year Lego announced plans to build a new center to research and develop “sustainable, raw materials”. Lego tries to either recycle its plastics or sell them to various manufactures who would be able to use it. Only about 1% of Lego plastics go unrecycled. Yet that 1% can make a vast difference when you think about how many Lego products are sold around the world. A lot of the focus on recycling is on the food and clothing industry, but in the future I think that it would be a good idea to look at recycling across the board.
