Turning 3D Printer Purge Piles Into Profit

Turning 3D Printer Purge Piles Into Profit

Can failed prints and purge “poop” actually become sellable products?

If you run 3D printers regularly, you’ll know the feeling. Purge lines. Failed prints. Support material. Colour changes. It all piles up fast.

At 3D Print Land, I’ve been collecting every single bit of PLA waste for months. Nothing gets thrown away. And eventually, the question becomes impossible to ignore:

Can this stuff actually be turned into something useful… or even profitable?

So in this experiment, I finally put it to the test.



Why I wanted to try this

Over roughly three months of printing, I’d built up a huge box of purge piles in all sorts of colours. Browns, silvers, blues, random mixes from multi-colour prints. It looked like waste, but it also looked like raw material.

I’ve seen other creators melt down PLA into moulds before, usually with heat guns or toaster ovens, making things like coasters, skulls, trays and ornaments. Some of the results looked genuinely sellable.

So the goal was simple:

• See what actually happens when you melt PLA
• Test oven vs heat gun
• Find out if the results are strong, smooth and usable
• Work out whether this is a gimmick or something that could genuinely be sold

And most importantly… whether it’s worth the effort.

The setup (and the safety reality)

I didn’t use a kitchen oven or air fryer. Fumes, residue and plastic particles are not something you want anywhere near food.

I bought a cheap dedicated mini oven purely for plastic, grabbed some silicone moulds, and worked in a ventilated space.

Even then, I’ll say this clearly, just like I did in the video:

This is experimental. It smells. It can smoke. It’s hot enough to seriously burn you.
If anyone tries this, do it properly, with ventilation, protective gear, and equipment you are never going to cook food in.

This wasn’t a “how-to”. It was a “what actually happens if I try this”.

Oven vs heat gun

I tested two main methods:

🔥 Heat gun

This is what I’d tried before on TikTok. It definitely works, but it’s very manual. You’re constantly working one spot at a time, trying to push softened plastic into corners, dealing with uneven melting, bubbles and gaps.

It’s fine for small pieces, but for anything bigger, it’s slow and tiring.

🔥 Mini oven

The oven took longer, but the heat was consistent. Over time the PLA slumped, flowed and fused together far more evenly.

It still wasn’t perfect. There were air pockets, surface bubbles and some shrinkage. But the finish was noticeably smoother, glossier and more solid than the heat gun results.

If I were to keep doing this, a dedicated larger high-temperature oven would 100% be the way forward.

What I actually made

I tested:

• A small tray
• Several skull moulds
• Larger novelty moulds

Once cooled and demoulded, the results were genuinely surprising.

They were:

• Solid
• Heavy
• Smooth to the touch
• Not brittle
• Visually interesting because of the mixed colours

Some had small cavities. Some had flashing around the edges. Some needed trimming. But none of them felt like “waste plastic”. They felt like finished objects.

When I weighed them, the numbers were even more interesting.

One skull used around 300–380g of filament.
The tray used over 200g.

Altogether, nearly 900g of scrap PLA was turned into a handful of solid products.

That’s almost an entire roll of filament that would normally have gone in the bin.

Are they sellable?

Honestly? Yes.

With a cleaner process, better moulds, mould release, and more controlled heating, these could easily be:

• Desk ornaments
• Plant pot trays
• Cable trays
• Trinket dishes
• Decorative skulls
• Paperweights
• Workshop décor

They are not food safe. Not even close. The internal pores, mixed plastics and uncontrolled melting make that a hard no.

But as decorative or functional desk items? Absolutely.

The big appeal is the story:

These are made from real recycled 3D printer waste. Every piece is unique. Nothing ends up in landfill.

That matters to customers.

What I learned

This experiment answered a few big questions.

  1. PLA absolutely can be remelted and reshaped at home

  2. An oven gives better overall results than a heat gun

  3. Air bubbles and shrinkage are the main problems to solve

  4. Dedicated equipment is essential

  5. This is not quick. It’s slow, hot, and a bit painful if you’re careless

But most importantly:

This isn’t just content.
This could genuinely become a small product line.

Recycled 3D printer scrap products, made in-house, with zero filament cost.

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