As a quick exercise on how much the filament for the Ekocycle 3D printer actually costs, I did a bit of detective work. While the machine itself is reasonably priced, the actual amount of filament you get in the $50 cartridges is conspicuously absent from their website. While they do not state it, they do give some hints:
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Each EKOCYCLE cartridge contains 25% post-consumer recycled materials, using an average of 3 assorted recycled 20 oz. PET plastic bottles.
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I did a little research and I found that you get approximately 19 20 oz bottles per pound of PET. From this we can calculate that each bottle is 0.84 ounces (16oz/19bottles) or 23.81 grams. Then from the blurb on the 3D Systems website we see that each cartridge contains 25% recycled plastic which is about equivalent to 3 bottles. From this we can conclude that each spool is 285.72 grams (23.81 * 3 * 4). Now that we have grams per cartridge we can actually figure out the cost per kilogram, which is..... Drum roll please..... $175 per kilogram. The most expensive non 3D Systems equivalent to this filament is Tauluman t-glase which cost about $70/kg. There are a few suppliers making PETG filament for $50/kg.