11 ms·

Precious Plastic is in trouble

309 points by diggan 1y ago

globular-toast 1y ago
I know that some parts of the world do decimal point and thousand separator the other way around, but I've never seen a single symbol being used for both. Quite confusing.
monkmartinez 1y ago
US Centric view: I would love to open a workspace. Full stop. However, due to the price of the shredder and the tools required to transform the plastic into new forms; One needs to have a dedicated space with a lot of power. Then you need to secure a source of plastic. You would think this part would be easy, I mean that is the whole premise of this org's existence, right? You would be wrong in that assumption. There is big money in "recycling" in the US. From the collection, sorting, and distribution of recycled materials... someone already has a contract to legally "do it." I am bummed to see them in this position. There seems to be a few hotspots around the world where this would really work. They aren't near me, that is for sure.
- block_dagger 1y ago
  I don’t think “full stop” means what you think it means.
- hinkley 1y ago
  15KW to make a single sheet of plastic. That is practically the entire capacity of a residential power feed. And “several sheets per day”. Ouch. If I were seeing a plastic recycling facility on How It’s Made I would expect to see a continuous feed system, with elaborate heat scavenging systems to preheat the ingredients while cooling the product. I’m not sure how you scale such a thing down to cottage industry scale. Preheating to around 60° could be reasonably done by amateurs but this stuff goes up to at least 350° to melt plastic.
  - mchannon 1y ago
    Am thinking propane tanks. Working with those temps probably not appropriate for an office environment, but on a porch or well-ventilated garage, should economically outperform 110V pretty well.
    - pjc50 1y ago
      Running the recycling operation off propane is hilarious. That sounds like an easy way to emit far more CO2 than just burning the plastic and making some new plastic out of the propane.
      - hinkley 1y ago
        New Belgium distilling used to take the dregs from their beer batches and ferment them again anaerobically to produce methane they then used to fire some of their boilers. Then those dregs got composted and used on the landscaping. There are ways to co-generate fuel for this but I don't want to lose the larger message that PP is producing toy solutions no matter how you zhuzh them up. Could they get over that in version 5? Probably. But more likely on 6 or 7, and more likely still for another entrepreneur to scoop them and make something real.
- zevon 1y ago
  Interesting. I have used Precious Plastic and similar machines in educational settings and I know a few people who have set up more or less permanent workshops. There were never any problems getting materials (one's own trash, old plastic furniture and other plastic things from classified ads, have participants bring their own materials, ...). Could you elaborate on how the machines are expensive? Did you want to buy or build them?
- culi 1y ago
  Would it be possible to do something on a much smaller scale? In addition to workspaces they also have community drop off points. With some concerted effort and education you could likely get a few communities to commit to such a project and bring their cleaned and sorted plastics There might even already be a drop off point near you https://community.preciousplastic.com/map https://community.preciousplastic.com/map
nchmy 1y ago
I was super excited about Precious Plastic when I discovered them 8 years ago. But it didn't take long to realize that they didn't have a clue. The machines are all FAR too small and fancy/expensive to really make much sense. I've seen some more practical offshoots from PP that design larger machines with recycled materials etc, and consequently they have sustainable businesses around the world. So, most of all, as is clear from the post, they never really even tried - in over a decade - to make it a viable, self-sustaining enterprise, of any sort. Also, what's conspicuously missing from the post is their Portugal-based Precious Plastic Camp boondoggle, which always struck me as a hipster commune more than anything. They also suddenly deleted the original forums, which contained lots of fantastic info. So, I don't have much faith that throwing more good money after bad would help at all. I'm grateful for the inspiration and excitement that they brought into the world, but it's time for them to be recycled. And, yet, I expect they'll con someone into helping revive them for version 5, 6 and beyond. That's the way of the non-profit world.
- robingchan 1y ago
  I hate to say it but i sort of agree. I’ve also followed PP from the initial grant in Paris but a lot of these problems seem to be self-inflicted. Ones that most stood out were having no insurance, unrealistic open source expectations and giving $100k away rather than furthering the cause. I’m sure theres minutiae and context i’m missing but that post doesn’t scream competence. I’m worried any donation would be fluttered away. The line about being at peace with the project dying seems bizarre. Perhaps time for a little organisational shakeup
  - xmprt 1y ago
    > The line about being at peace with the project dying seems bizarre Perhaps it's just me but this was the line that made the most sense to me. If a non-profit thinks they've achieved their mission, or at least that they don't have a good plan for next steps, then the most sensible thing to do is to close shop rather than to spend money unnecessarily.
  - oulipo 1y ago
    Hindsight is always 10/10. They might have tried something new, and most of founders learn by making experiences and mistakes. I don't see an issue here
decimalenough 1y ago
After reading this and clicking around the site I'm still not entirely sure what these machines actually do. Apparently they grind up hard plastics and turn them into pellets? But similar machines already exist as a commercial/industrial product that can easily and cheaply (from $500) be bought from Alibaba etc [1], so their differentiation is that their machines are open-source? Which is useful how, exactly? Their Pro page estimates EUR 2000+ in parts alone per machine, plus you need to cobble the things together yourself. [1] https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/plastic-recycling.html https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/plastic-recycling.html [2] https://www.preciousplastic.com/solutions/machines/pro https://www.preciousplastic.com/solutions/machines/pro
- nchmy 1y ago
  It's useful for people who don't want to make a bicycle-powered shredder and instead want to source local laser-cut specialized alloys and all sorts of electronics, so they can produce a few kg of shredded plastic per day, and then a few bowls. /s The value of Precious Plastic has long-since been realized - it inspired some actually-practical people to start making cottage recycling industries in the developing world, which has helped provide some employment and divert some plastic from rivers.
  - toomuchtodo 1y ago
    All of this plastic should be shoveled into a plasma gasifier. This performance art is just a grift. Recycling it results in suboptimal downstream products, landfilling it allows for future mismanagement (methane emissions, groundwater contamination). Gasification is cleaner than incineration, and you can burn the syn gas produced to recover some energy for cogeneration. Resulting slag produced is inert and can be safely landfilled.
    - alfor 1y ago
      Exactly: plastic is already cheap in the pristine version, the mixed, contaminated is a nonsense product, valid only as a grift, greenwashing prop. Burn it and handle the remains properly.
sneak 1y ago
Someone donated 100k to them recently and they apparently gave it all to their community and didn’t use it to save their own org, so now they’re broke and dying. Even cash won’t save you if you don’t know how to budget and plan.
- matkoniecz 1y ago
  > We received a €100K donation. Which was amazing, but we decided to give it all to the community so they can continue developing their projects. Not to sustain the organisation itself. And I see no mention that they have any plans to not do it again
  - kennywinker 1y ago
    Well, it sounds like if you plan to donate $100k, and don’t want it passed on, you should probably talk to them before you send the cheque. This is such a weird critique to me. Their goal is to create a community… giving $$ to the community is furthering their goal.
- hinkley 1y ago
  It’s a lot harder to be an effective person than a well meaning one. I knew some people who tried to get an intentional community together and it was three or for professionally successful people and a lot of people who could burn up a meeting with talk but not much else.
  - munificent 1y ago
    > It’s a lot harder to be an effective person than a well meaning one. I don't think this is true, but I do think it's more than 2x harder to be both effective and well-meaning. Getting things done without doing anything shady or unethical is sort of like winning a race while running on one leg.
- 3dsnano 1y ago
  their work to date seems like 100K well spent on trying something very few other people would even attempt, no less take it as far as they did. i'm not sure if people here comprehend how much work it is to do and sustain something like this for almost a decade. a lot of the work is niche community-building, it's a hard slog fought one workshop at a time. its like herding idealistic cats, not easy. i will always appreciate those who hold the line and choose to die on weird hills like this. while i commend them on their work to date, it's clear that this is a hard problem to solve within our current socio-economic environment. after all, plastic is around us, within us, and inevitably part of us now. as humans we need to stop burying it and confront what we are doing.
kleton 1y ago
I'll raise an alternative: plastics are degraded by the heat and pressure of repeated processes like injection molding. Recycled plastic objects will be of lower quality and shed more microplastics. Instead of recycling them, incinerate them for electrical energy. Use a modern incinerator design that guarantees 100% mineralization to carbon dioxide and water.
- SchemaLoad 1y ago
  I looked in to this because it does actually sound logical, but it seems like burying plastic in landfill might actually be better. By incinerating it, you've taken carbon (oil) out of the ground, and released it into the atmosphere. By burying it back underground you are locking it away for at least a thousand years. We need to cut down on producing it first, recycle it second, and then bury it as deep as possible.
  - 9283409232 1y ago
    Manufacturing would like a quicker return on investment than 1000 years. We already made the plastic, they would like to do something with it.
  - ekianjo 1y ago
    Don't you contaminate the soils if you do that? Water flows everywhere...
    - jdlshore 1y ago
      Landfills are designed to prevent that sort of leaching. There’s an interesting Practical Engineering article / video about it: https://practical.engineering/blog/2024/9/3/the-hidden-engineering-of-landfills https://practical.engineering/blog/2024/9/3/the-hidden-engin...
      - komali2 1y ago
        In theory yes. In practical terms, it's cheaper to ship it to India so you don't have to store it in the expensive landfill with all the regulations and staff that have maternity leave and dental care, where the plastic can be piled into artificial mountains with basically no landfill design principles applied.
jheriko 1y ago
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deleted 1y ago
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jpcookie 1y ago
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moralestapia 1y ago
It would be nice to know how much money they got during all this time they've been active.
spoaceman7777 1y ago
Wow. The only people who could have decided to write and publish this article are the same people who did all of the other insane things in that article. It reads as though they're begging people not to bail them out. Like... in all of that, there isn't a single detail about how they aren't going to kneecap themselves again. (And, considering their track record, that seems inevitable, if not imminent.) This should be taken down, and whoever has been doing these things should write up a plan for what they might do to prevent the truly obscene mismanagement laid out in the article from continuing. Perhaps ask for advice? Or, more likely, stop ignoring advice that many people must surely have been giving them. Without that, they are seemingly just going to continue wasting the time, and money, of anyone who might get involved with their project. (Also, the random pot shot at open source in general was unnecessary, irrelevant, and bitter. If they wanted people who use their software to give something back, then they should have licensed it accordingly.)
- globular-toast 1y ago
  I tried to find their code and found one thing MIT licensed and others with no licence in the repo at all. They complain about big companies freeloading their work. That's just what happens with permissive licensing. You've explicitly given them permission to do that. It sounds like yet another case of should have used GPL.
dang 1y ago
Related. Others? Start a Business from Plastic Waste - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26860992 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26860992 - April 2021 (98 comments) Precious Plastic Version 4 [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21986375 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21986375 - Jan 2020 (12 comments) Precious Plastic Version 3.0 aims to fix plastic pollution - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15497732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15497732 - Oct 2017 (35 comments)
- NaOH 1y ago
  Open-Source Recycling - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11533207 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11533207 - April 2016 (40 comments) PreciousPlastic – An Open Source Plastic Recycling Workshop - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11381530 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11381530 - Mar 2016 (2 comments)
kazinator 1y ago
> Our problem was Chrome-6, a chemical the municipality found in the paint from the building that was applied 40 years ago. Which meant we had to leave the workspace fast, and the building was large, we had a lot of machines and items to sell, in a short amount of time, during lockdowns. This meant we had to sell many things below value since that period most people were looking to buy bread machines, not robot arms. That's an asshole thing to do. Nothing is more petty than municipal politics, especially if amplified by a pandemic. "The sky is going to fall if something isn't done about the 40-year-old Chrome-6! Everyone must GTF out of that building, right NOW!"
- colechristensen 1y ago
  I assume they mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexavalent_chromium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexavalent_chromium which indeed is quite toxic, not allowing businesses to operate where their workers could be exposed to carcinogens is very reasonable and not at all petty municipal politics.
  - kazinator 1y ago
    There is absolutely no reason to have a cow over this stuff being present in existing paint, unless it is chalking, or being sanded. Not to the extent that everyone has to evacuate immediately and sell their badly needed equipment for below market value. It's a dick move.
    - Joel_Mckay 1y ago
      Most places that ran plating treatments are toxic waste sites. Site remediation is slow and really expensive, but better than organ failure or cancer. Chrome salts can be particularly bad with low LD50 ratings. =3
brikym 1y ago
This is an ambulancing project. The focus should be on forcing industry to pay for the pollution they create on an industrial scale. It's never going to be cleaned up by small actors. These projects probably make plastic production more acceptable which is not what we want. Look over there, see recycling a few tones of plastic works, now let's carry on producing boat loads of shit.
- oblio 1y ago
  We basically need to increase the cost of plastic to account for all externalities. It's a super material, it needs to cost as much as competing natural materials: nylon - silk, whatever plastic bottles are made of - glass/aluminum, whatever packaging is made of - paper/textiles, whatever containers are made of - wood/steel/aluminum/etc. Similar story for paints. Basically, excises, but for plastic instead of just alcohol and tobacco. We do this, plastic starts being used just where it really makes sense.
  - mavhc 1y ago
    We need to increase the cost of everything to account for all externalities. This will also encourage people to invent things to reduce the cost of the externalities, win win
  - oblio 1y ago
    Rollercoaster of a comment, that one of mine. Down voters: why not comment why not? The market is clearly failing. I count a possible solution is 50+ years as failure.
- worldsayshi 1y ago
  The industry isn't getting forced to pay for the pollution they are causing anyway. They don't need to point at initiatives like this to avoid that. People with brooms are not an argument for people making a mess to carry on what they are doing.
  - ZeroGravitas 1y ago
comfrey 1y ago
Six months before we run out of money oh my gosh, what a blessing, bro count your blessings and be grateful
comfrey 1y ago
From my own personal experience, it sounds like mismanagement If you have six months of funds, left to operate, then count your blessings and be grateful and be creative bro come on now why are you complaining?
colechristensen 1y ago
Until there's a reasonably priced industrial scale process to efficiently reprocess plastics into indistinguishable-from-virgin plastic precursors, I think all plastic waste and similar garbage should be burned in well maintained waste-to-power plants and eliminating this source of semi-fossil-fuel energy should only be considered a priority when all other fossil fuel power sources have been effectively eliminated. We're already burning things for power, might as well have that crude oil take a detour into consumer products for a while first, and because it's useful in several ways, make it last in line to eliminate (and at the same time offsetting some oil/coal/gas production)
renewiltord 1y ago
I’m going to be straight with you: if you’re fundraising you need to write for the people who aren’t already part of your audience. If that’s not what you’re doing then it doesn’t matter. But I read your blurb and then met the video at the fold and instinctively hit back.
Scrapemist 1y ago
Several industrial scale recycling facilities in the Netherlands have closed or gone bankrupt partly due to how cheap new plastics are. They simply can’t compete and were hoping for legislation that enforces producers to deal with the waist or tax the use of new plastics. Sadly it never happened. Probably a strong lobby.
kevinh456 1y ago
It took way too fucking long to figure out what they’re doing. Maybe they should have paid for pr or marketing or something.
acyou 1y ago
I didn't see an FAQ and can only guess and piece it together, here goes: Precious Plastics designs, sells and operates plastic processing and recycling equipment, including crucibles, presses, extrusion presses, sheet presses, injection molding machines, shredders, graders. You can buy the equipment or download the drawings for free, it's open source. Precious Plastics operates a partner network of plastic recyclers and processors. Especially in developing countries where industrial scale recycling infrastructure doesn't already exist, this allows plastic recycling to happen in situations where it would otherwise go in a landfill. Precious Plastics has a small, human centric ideal embedded in its culture and messaging. It's based around the idea of a small machine in a garage operated as a hobby with others in the local community, not a vertically integrated industrial behemoth. Does that cover it well?
- try_the_bass 1y ago
  Was this written by an LLM?
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - acyou 1y ago
    No, what are you trying to say?
    - try_the_bass 1y ago
      It reads like ChatGPT or another recent LLM wrote it. So I asked?
  - groggo 1y ago
    I thought it was a nice clear summary, I wouldn't care if it was from an LLM. This summary should be at the top of their page. Maybe it'd be nice if there were a Chrome HN plugin that adds a summary like this to all articles on HN so you can get the context before either reading the article or skimming the comments.
fsckboy 1y ago
i went to read the page then i went to read the comments here, current count 65 i don't get a sense that the people interested in this topic agree on anything, except "it's of some, but not too much, importance" i do, however, get a sense that the people interested in this are in a distinct minority. i am always happy when a distinct minority gets their day in the sun and I get to learn about them.
owenversteeg 1y ago
Plastic recycling of any type is a complete fraud on the public, inefficient, and highly destructive to the environment in several ways. A comment I wrote a few days ago on another plastic recycling discussion: The real issue with plastic recycling is twofold: it is a dead end and recycled plastics shed microplastics like crazy. Other materials, such as metals, can effectively be infinitely recycled, but plastic cannot; recycled plastic is worse than virgin plastic in every way. It also destroys the environment around us, because recycled plastics are effectively really shitty plastics that shed everywhere. In short, plastic recycling is a fraud perpetuated by greenwashing initiatives. The only proper thing to do with old plastic is to incinerate it at high temperatures that achieve complete combustion. This is rare though; most plastic is burned at low enough temperatures that it causes pollution. Great stuff, plastic, huh?
- meindnoch 1y ago
  ^ This times 1000. Just look at the "wonderful" products they make from recycled plastic: https://www.preciousplastic.com/solutions/prods https://www.preciousplastic.com/solutions/prods Each and every one of them is a low-quality, microplastic-shedding abomination. You can literally see their surface crumbling. Now imagine what UV and heat cycling does to mystery meat plastic like this. Horrible quality, bad for the environment, bad for humans. Stop doing it.
mipselaer 1y ago
Why is Putin in the promotion video?
tonyhart7 1y ago
this project is noble idea and good intention all around that I hope they have full success but this is rough part that everyone need to eat and sometimes being a business is not bad idea at all
miaotech 1y ago
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krisoft 1y ago
This is the first time I’m hearing about “Precious Plastic”, so my comment is entirely based on this one article. The real problem here is that they are lacking a clear and well articulated roadmap. If we give them money, what will they use it for? Will they make new opensource tool designs which has bigger capacity? Easier to maintain? Or smaller and easier to manufacture? Or safer by design? Or lower energy? Or easier to transport? Will they use it to develop forum and wiki software? Will they throw all the donations into a litigation pit? Will they use it to microfund workshops all over the world? Are they planning to do more outreach? If so where and how? I’m not looking for a detailed step by step project plan. But something directional would be great. What will “version 5” give to the world compared to “version 4”? If they can’t answer that then Precious Plastic is indeed in trouble. But the trouble is not from any of those mentioned stresses, but from a lack of vision and direction.
- ljm 1y ago
  > lack of vision and direction. I've seen this play out more than once during my career and startups with otherwise great concepts end up treading water because the founding team or leadership fails to execute. Being a charismatic sales person might work wonders in terms of attracting funding and talent but it's not enough if you lack the capability to follow through with it. I'd wager that lots of the latest batch of startups that want do-it-all 'product engineers' will collapse for the exact same reason: delegating vision.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
    I've been a "shipper," all my adult life. It's always been my job to Make Things Happen, as opposed to "Make Things Look Like They're Happening." A lot of "Making Things Happen" is boring and un-sexy, but absolutely crucial. I'm always surprised, when I run into folks that are awesome at schmoozing and getting folks to come to the party (I'm not so good at that stuff), and may be extremely creative and talented, but lack the follow-through, to make their dreams a reality. It's usually when folks like that, team up with folks like me, that magic happens. Rarely, you have it in one person.
ljm 1y ago
> We received a €100K donation. Which was amazing, but we decided to give it all to the community so they can continue developing their projects. Not to sustain the organisation itself. It seems a lot of the problems they described are self-inflicted and go a step beyond simple mistakes or errors in judgment. To be honest, I think the request for extra support would be more sincere if the leadership involved in those situations also stepped down and, instead of promising a 'version 5', looked at solving the problems in the org itself. The due diligence just doesn't check out and there is zero indication that the organisation has learned from these problems and not merely acknowledged them. How would you know it's not a scam?
- jstummbillig 1y ago
  Who solves the problems if the leadership steps down, without any real resources to speak of?
  - ljm 1y ago
    I would imagine a condition of the funding would be to restructure and get the right people in place to continue the mission, ideally more responsibly. Like, the entire article is saying "we fucked up in various ways" but there is no accountability piece to speak of. Just an ask for more money for a ground up rebuild.
    - diggan 1y ago
      > Just an ask for more money for a ground up rebuild That seems to misunderstand what they're asking for. As far as I understand, they're asking for money to build version 5, by using everything they built so far. It's not a "ground up rebuild" by any measure, but funding for the next iteration seems to be missing.
      - ljm 1y ago
        I am literally referencing the article: > It will mean rebuilding things from the ground up, which requires much more help and resources than before. In what way is 'ground up rebuild' a misunderstanding of 'rebuilding things from the ground up'?
meindnoch 1y ago
Good. We don't need amateurs producing low-durability microplastic-shedding mixed-resin trinkets.
papaver-somnamb 1y ago
Perhaps narrow your role and allow someone else to be responsible & accountable for driving the business side of things? Take an honest assessment of how you can meaningfully contribute and concentrate on that, and pass the reins over to someone else who specializes in handling reins. Where are you best? Pushing forward on a long-held vision, planting a flag in the ground and rallying everyone to it, while ignoring petty concerns like a positive balance sheet? Great! Delegate that latter one to someone who specializes in it and then cooperate & thrive with them. On the other hand, the plastic industry needs reform. Only about 1/3 of plastic produced is recycled in practice, and even then only once. Hardly the recyclable miracle that the plastic lobby has been messaging on since at least the 1990s. And what is the industry's response? Increased production YOY! Want truly recyclable materials, in practice? Glass. Steel, and some other metals. Fibers, like paper, to an extent. That being said, I see a need for "base-load" plastic. Plastic is useful and we may forever need it, until at least something better comes along. Particular in key single-use applications like health services.
ghuroo1 1y ago
the donation form should be a lot more straightforward for single donations.. it requires too many fields and I can’t do a “fast checkout” like on online stores.. basically a big button sending me to a payment platform so I can just pay and move on.
KnuthIsGod 1y ago
"Lawsuit However after a period of time an accident happened with someone using the machine, which was very unfortunate. And in the US, especially NY this means you need to get lawyers. What happened, who is responsible? Is it the company that hired us all, Precious Plastic (back then operating under One Army Entity) for organising it, was it a result of bad operational instructions, misuse of the machine or a fault in the machine from the community member? We analysed it and are convinced that we are not to blame. But we do not know what a judge is going to say. Meanwhile this has been going on for the last 2 years. Lots of paperwork and documents need to be filed with lawyers that charge up to $600/h, sending emails got painful. Being in a lawsuit in New York is very costly. "
- Gracana 1y ago
  I wonder what happened. IMO their shredder does not look very safe. It's a device that can cause digital amputation and entanglement and operators are exposed to it 100% of the time they're using the machine, which would classify it as a high-risk hazard. It really should have guarding to make the hazard inaccessible, like a longer infeed chute and a start/stop interlock that prevents it from running unless there's a bin underneath. I suspect it's going to be hard to argue that procedure & policy were appropriate ways to address the risk.
superzamp 1y ago
PS: it's not highly visible in the link but this post is 6 months old [1]. Wondering where they are now, given that they seemed to have less than that in runway. [1] https://community.preciousplastic.com/questions/questions-on-the-article-with-our-problems https://community.preciousplastic.com/questions/questions-on...
James_K 1y ago
These recycling efforts can be quite bad in the long run because they recycle plastic into materials that cannot themselves be recycled. Not sure if that's the case here, but it's something to watch out for.
curtisszmania 1y ago
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lemma_peculiar 1y ago
i find it nigh insane that companies doing good have to deal with the us-american legal system which is only good at extracting money instead of actual justice. what a shame.
its-summertime 1y ago
Give us money or we'll take the ball and go home... Why not donate PP (forums, discussions, designs, etc) to the community?
dyeje 1y ago
Why build your own community software? Sounds like a waste of resources, there are many off the shelf and open source alternatives.
ta20240528 1y ago
Amateur hour.
mc007 1y ago
Hi there, we're working almost 10 years on the subject, also dealing with PreciousPlastic designs, users and problems on a daily basis. From what we can tell, its an extremely violent and fraudulent organization. None of the designs actually worked, nor any of the bold statements can be backed up with evidence. See here the full report : https://forum.osr-plastic.org/t/preciousplastic-review/11066 https://forum.osr-plastic.org/t/preciousplastic-review/11066 Its a scam after all, we know also well from others.

309 points by diggan 1y ago

I know that some parts of the world do decimal point and thousand separator the other way around, but I've never seen a single symbol being used for both. Quite confusing.

monkmartinez 1y ago

US Centric view: I would love to open a workspace. Full stop. However, due to the price of the shredder and the tools required to transform the plastic into new forms; One needs to have a dedicated space with a lot of power. Then you need to secure a source of plastic. You would think this part would be easy, I mean that is the whole premise of this org's existence, right? You would be wrong in that assumption. There is big money in "recycling" in the US. From the collection, sorting, and distribution of recycled materials... someone already has a contract to legally "do it." I am bummed to see them in this position. There seems to be a few hotspots around the world where this would really work. They aren't near me, that is for sure.

block_dagger 1y ago
I don’t think “full stop” means what you think it means.
hinkley 1y ago
15KW to make a single sheet of plastic. That is practically the entire capacity of a residential power feed. And “several sheets per day”. Ouch. If I were seeing a plastic recycling facility on How It’s Made I would expect to see a continuous feed system, with elaborate heat scavenging systems to preheat the ingredients while cooling the product. I’m not sure how you scale such a thing down to cottage industry scale. Preheating to around 60° could be reasonably done by amateurs but this stuff goes up to at least 350° to melt plastic.
- mchannon 1y ago
  Am thinking propane tanks. Working with those temps probably not appropriate for an office environment, but on a porch or well-ventilated garage, should economically outperform 110V pretty well.
  - pjc50 1y ago
    Running the recycling operation off propane is hilarious. That sounds like an easy way to emit far more CO2 than just burning the plastic and making some new plastic out of the propane.
    - hinkley 1y ago
      New Belgium distilling used to take the dregs from their beer batches and ferment them again anaerobically to produce methane they then used to fire some of their boilers. Then those dregs got composted and used on the landscaping. There are ways to co-generate fuel for this but I don't want to lose the larger message that PP is producing toy solutions no matter how you zhuzh them up. Could they get over that in version 5? Probably. But more likely on 6 or 7, and more likely still for another entrepreneur to scoop them and make something real.
zevon 1y ago
Interesting. I have used Precious Plastic and similar machines in educational settings and I know a few people who have set up more or less permanent workshops. There were never any problems getting materials (one's own trash, old plastic furniture and other plastic things from classified ads, have participants bring their own materials, ...). Could you elaborate on how the machines are expensive? Did you want to buy or build them?
culi 1y ago
Would it be possible to do something on a much smaller scale? In addition to workspaces they also have community drop off points. With some concerted effort and education you could likely get a few communities to commit to such a project and bring their cleaned and sorted plastics There might even already be a drop off point near you https://community.preciousplastic.com/map https://community.preciousplastic.com/map

nchmy 1y ago

I was super excited about Precious Plastic when I discovered them 8 years ago. But it didn't take long to realize that they didn't have a clue. The machines are all FAR too small and fancy/expensive to really make much sense. I've seen some more practical offshoots from PP that design larger machines with recycled materials etc, and consequently they have sustainable businesses around the world. So, most of all, as is clear from the post, they never really even tried - in over a decade - to make it a viable, self-sustaining enterprise, of any sort. Also, what's conspicuously missing from the post is their Portugal-based Precious Plastic Camp boondoggle, which always struck me as a hipster commune more than anything. They also suddenly deleted the original forums, which contained lots of fantastic info. So, I don't have much faith that throwing more good money after bad would help at all. I'm grateful for the inspiration and excitement that they brought into the world, but it's time for them to be recycled. And, yet, I expect they'll con someone into helping revive them for version 5, 6 and beyond. That's the way of the non-profit world.

robingchan 1y ago
I hate to say it but i sort of agree. I’ve also followed PP from the initial grant in Paris but a lot of these problems seem to be self-inflicted. Ones that most stood out were having no insurance, unrealistic open source expectations and giving $100k away rather than furthering the cause. I’m sure theres minutiae and context i’m missing but that post doesn’t scream competence. I’m worried any donation would be fluttered away. The line about being at peace with the project dying seems bizarre. Perhaps time for a little organisational shakeup
- xmprt 1y ago
  > The line about being at peace with the project dying seems bizarre Perhaps it's just me but this was the line that made the most sense to me. If a non-profit thinks they've achieved their mission, or at least that they don't have a good plan for next steps, then the most sensible thing to do is to close shop rather than to spend money unnecessarily.
- oulipo 1y ago
  Hindsight is always 10/10. They might have tried something new, and most of founders learn by making experiences and mistakes. I don't see an issue here

decimalenough 1y ago

After reading this and clicking around the site I'm still not entirely sure what these machines actually do. Apparently they grind up hard plastics and turn them into pellets? But similar machines already exist as a commercial/industrial product that can easily and cheaply (from $500) be bought from Alibaba etc [1], so their differentiation is that their machines are open-source? Which is useful how, exactly? Their Pro page estimates EUR 2000+ in parts alone per machine, plus you need to cobble the things together yourself. [1] https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/plastic-recycling.html https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/plastic-recycling.html [2] https://www.preciousplastic.com/solutions/machines/pro https://www.preciousplastic.com/solutions/machines/pro

nchmy 1y ago
It's useful for people who don't want to make a bicycle-powered shredder and instead want to source local laser-cut specialized alloys and all sorts of electronics, so they can produce a few kg of shredded plastic per day, and then a few bowls. /s The value of Precious Plastic has long-since been realized - it inspired some actually-practical people to start making cottage recycling industries in the developing world, which has helped provide some employment and divert some plastic from rivers.
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  All of this plastic should be shoveled into a plasma gasifier. This performance art is just a grift. Recycling it results in suboptimal downstream products, landfilling it allows for future mismanagement (methane emissions, groundwater contamination). Gasification is cleaner than incineration, and you can burn the syn gas produced to recover some energy for cogeneration. Resulting slag produced is inert and can be safely landfilled.
  - alfor 1y ago
    Exactly: plastic is already cheap in the pristine version, the mixed, contaminated is a nonsense product, valid only as a grift, greenwashing prop. Burn it and handle the remains properly.

sneak 1y ago

Someone donated 100k to them recently and they apparently gave it all to their community and didn’t use it to save their own org, so now they’re broke and dying. Even cash won’t save you if you don’t know how to budget and plan.

matkoniecz 1y ago
> We received a €100K donation. Which was amazing, but we decided to give it all to the community so they can continue developing their projects. Not to sustain the organisation itself. And I see no mention that they have any plans to not do it again
- kennywinker 1y ago
  Well, it sounds like if you plan to donate $100k, and don’t want it passed on, you should probably talk to them before you send the cheque. This is such a weird critique to me. Their goal is to create a community… giving $$ to the community is furthering their goal.
hinkley 1y ago
It’s a lot harder to be an effective person than a well meaning one. I knew some people who tried to get an intentional community together and it was three or for professionally successful people and a lot of people who could burn up a meeting with talk but not much else.
- munificent 1y ago
  > It’s a lot harder to be an effective person than a well meaning one. I don't think this is true, but I do think it's more than 2x harder to be both effective and well-meaning. Getting things done without doing anything shady or unethical is sort of like winning a race while running on one leg.
3dsnano 1y ago
their work to date seems like 100K well spent on trying something very few other people would even attempt, no less take it as far as they did. i'm not sure if people here comprehend how much work it is to do and sustain something like this for almost a decade. a lot of the work is niche community-building, it's a hard slog fought one workshop at a time. its like herding idealistic cats, not easy. i will always appreciate those who hold the line and choose to die on weird hills like this. while i commend them on their work to date, it's clear that this is a hard problem to solve within our current socio-economic environment. after all, plastic is around us, within us, and inevitably part of us now. as humans we need to stop burying it and confront what we are doing.

kleton 1y ago

I'll raise an alternative: plastics are degraded by the heat and pressure of repeated processes like injection molding. Recycled plastic objects will be of lower quality and shed more microplastics. Instead of recycling them, incinerate them for electrical energy. Use a modern incinerator design that guarantees 100% mineralization to carbon dioxide and water.

SchemaLoad 1y ago
I looked in to this because it does actually sound logical, but it seems like burying plastic in landfill might actually be better. By incinerating it, you've taken carbon (oil) out of the ground, and released it into the atmosphere. By burying it back underground you are locking it away for at least a thousand years. We need to cut down on producing it first, recycle it second, and then bury it as deep as possible.
- 9283409232 1y ago
  Manufacturing would like a quicker return on investment than 1000 years. We already made the plastic, they would like to do something with it.
- ekianjo 1y ago
  Don't you contaminate the soils if you do that? Water flows everywhere...
  - jdlshore 1y ago
    Landfills are designed to prevent that sort of leaching. There’s an interesting Practical Engineering article / video about it: https://practical.engineering/blog/2024/9/3/the-hidden-engineering-of-landfills https://practical.engineering/blog/2024/9/3/the-hidden-engin...
    - komali2 1y ago
      In theory yes. In practical terms, it's cheaper to ship it to India so you don't have to store it in the expensive landfill with all the regulations and staff that have maternity leave and dental care, where the plastic can be piled into artificial mountains with basically no landfill design principles applied.

jheriko 1y ago

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jpcookie 1y ago

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moralestapia 1y ago

It would be nice to know how much money they got during all this time they've been active.

spoaceman7777 1y ago

Wow. The only people who could have decided to write and publish this article are the same people who did all of the other insane things in that article. It reads as though they're begging people not to bail them out. Like... in all of that, there isn't a single detail about how they aren't going to kneecap themselves again. (And, considering their track record, that seems inevitable, if not imminent.) This should be taken down, and whoever has been doing these things should write up a plan for what they might do to prevent the truly obscene mismanagement laid out in the article from continuing. Perhaps ask for advice? Or, more likely, stop ignoring advice that many people must surely have been giving them. Without that, they are seemingly just going to continue wasting the time, and money, of anyone who might get involved with their project. (Also, the random pot shot at open source in general was unnecessary, irrelevant, and bitter. If they wanted people who use their software to give something back, then they should have licensed it accordingly.)

globular-toast 1y ago
I tried to find their code and found one thing MIT licensed and others with no licence in the repo at all. They complain about big companies freeloading their work. That's just what happens with permissive licensing. You've explicitly given them permission to do that. It sounds like yet another case of should have used GPL.

dang 1y ago

Related. Others? Start a Business from Plastic Waste - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26860992 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26860992 - April 2021 (98 comments) Precious Plastic Version 4 [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21986375 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21986375 - Jan 2020 (12 comments) Precious Plastic Version 3.0 aims to fix plastic pollution - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15497732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15497732 - Oct 2017 (35 comments)

NaOH 1y ago
Open-Source Recycling - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11533207 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11533207 - April 2016 (40 comments) PreciousPlastic – An Open Source Plastic Recycling Workshop - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11381530 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11381530 - Mar 2016 (2 comments)

kazinator 1y ago

> Our problem was Chrome-6, a chemical the municipality found in the paint from the building that was applied 40 years ago. Which meant we had to leave the workspace fast, and the building was large, we had a lot of machines and items to sell, in a short amount of time, during lockdowns. This meant we had to sell many things below value since that period most people were looking to buy bread machines, not robot arms. That's an asshole thing to do. Nothing is more petty than municipal politics, especially if amplified by a pandemic. "The sky is going to fall if something isn't done about the 40-year-old Chrome-6! Everyone must GTF out of that building, right NOW!"

colechristensen 1y ago
I assume they mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexavalent_chromium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexavalent_chromium which indeed is quite toxic, not allowing businesses to operate where their workers could be exposed to carcinogens is very reasonable and not at all petty municipal politics.
- kazinator 1y ago
  There is absolutely no reason to have a cow over this stuff being present in existing paint, unless it is chalking, or being sanded. Not to the extent that everyone has to evacuate immediately and sell their badly needed equipment for below market value. It's a dick move.
  - Joel_Mckay 1y ago
    Most places that ran plating treatments are toxic waste sites. Site remediation is slow and really expensive, but better than organ failure or cancer. Chrome salts can be particularly bad with low LD50 ratings. =3

brikym 1y ago

This is an ambulancing project. The focus should be on forcing industry to pay for the pollution they create on an industrial scale. It's never going to be cleaned up by small actors. These projects probably make plastic production more acceptable which is not what we want. Look over there, see recycling a few tones of plastic works, now let's carry on producing boat loads of shit.

oblio 1y ago
We basically need to increase the cost of plastic to account for all externalities. It's a super material, it needs to cost as much as competing natural materials: nylon - silk, whatever plastic bottles are made of - glass/aluminum, whatever packaging is made of - paper/textiles, whatever containers are made of - wood/steel/aluminum/etc. Similar story for paints. Basically, excises, but for plastic instead of just alcohol and tobacco. We do this, plastic starts being used just where it really makes sense.
- mavhc 1y ago
  We need to increase the cost of everything to account for all externalities. This will also encourage people to invent things to reduce the cost of the externalities, win win
- oblio 1y ago
  Rollercoaster of a comment, that one of mine. Down voters: why not comment why not? The market is clearly failing. I count a possible solution is 50+ years as failure.
worldsayshi 1y ago
The industry isn't getting forced to pay for the pollution they are causing anyway. They don't need to point at initiatives like this to avoid that. People with brooms are not an argument for people making a mess to carry on what they are doing.
- ZeroGravitas 1y ago

comfrey 1y ago

Six months before we run out of money oh my gosh, what a blessing, bro count your blessings and be grateful

comfrey 1y ago

From my own personal experience, it sounds like mismanagement If you have six months of funds, left to operate, then count your blessings and be grateful and be creative bro come on now why are you complaining?

colechristensen 1y ago

Until there's a reasonably priced industrial scale process to efficiently reprocess plastics into indistinguishable-from-virgin plastic precursors, I think all plastic waste and similar garbage should be burned in well maintained waste-to-power plants and eliminating this source of semi-fossil-fuel energy should only be considered a priority when all other fossil fuel power sources have been effectively eliminated. We're already burning things for power, might as well have that crude oil take a detour into consumer products for a while first, and because it's useful in several ways, make it last in line to eliminate (and at the same time offsetting some oil/coal/gas production)

renewiltord 1y ago

I’m going to be straight with you: if you’re fundraising you need to write for the people who aren’t already part of your audience. If that’s not what you’re doing then it doesn’t matter. But I read your blurb and then met the video at the fold and instinctively hit back.

Scrapemist 1y ago

Several industrial scale recycling facilities in the Netherlands have closed or gone bankrupt partly due to how cheap new plastics are. They simply can’t compete and were hoping for legislation that enforces producers to deal with the waist or tax the use of new plastics. Sadly it never happened. Probably a strong lobby.

kevinh456 1y ago

It took way too fucking long to figure out what they’re doing. Maybe they should have paid for pr or marketing or something.

acyou 1y ago

I didn't see an FAQ and can only guess and piece it together, here goes: Precious Plastics designs, sells and operates plastic processing and recycling equipment, including crucibles, presses, extrusion presses, sheet presses, injection molding machines, shredders, graders. You can buy the equipment or download the drawings for free, it's open source. Precious Plastics operates a partner network of plastic recyclers and processors. Especially in developing countries where industrial scale recycling infrastructure doesn't already exist, this allows plastic recycling to happen in situations where it would otherwise go in a landfill. Precious Plastics has a small, human centric ideal embedded in its culture and messaging. It's based around the idea of a small machine in a garage operated as a hobby with others in the local community, not a vertically integrated industrial behemoth. Does that cover it well?

try_the_bass 1y ago
Was this written by an LLM?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- acyou 1y ago
  No, what are you trying to say?
  - try_the_bass 1y ago
    It reads like ChatGPT or another recent LLM wrote it. So I asked?
- groggo 1y ago
  I thought it was a nice clear summary, I wouldn't care if it was from an LLM. This summary should be at the top of their page. Maybe it'd be nice if there were a Chrome HN plugin that adds a summary like this to all articles on HN so you can get the context before either reading the article or skimming the comments.

fsckboy 1y ago

i went to read the page then i went to read the comments here, current count 65 i don't get a sense that the people interested in this topic agree on anything, except "it's of some, but not too much, importance" i do, however, get a sense that the people interested in this are in a distinct minority. i am always happy when a distinct minority gets their day in the sun and I get to learn about them.

owenversteeg 1y ago

Plastic recycling of any type is a complete fraud on the public, inefficient, and highly destructive to the environment in several ways. A comment I wrote a few days ago on another plastic recycling discussion: The real issue with plastic recycling is twofold: it is a dead end and recycled plastics shed microplastics like crazy. Other materials, such as metals, can effectively be infinitely recycled, but plastic cannot; recycled plastic is worse than virgin plastic in every way. It also destroys the environment around us, because recycled plastics are effectively really shitty plastics that shed everywhere. In short, plastic recycling is a fraud perpetuated by greenwashing initiatives. The only proper thing to do with old plastic is to incinerate it at high temperatures that achieve complete combustion. This is rare though; most plastic is burned at low enough temperatures that it causes pollution. Great stuff, plastic, huh?

meindnoch 1y ago
^ This times 1000. Just look at the "wonderful" products they make from recycled plastic: https://www.preciousplastic.com/solutions/prods https://www.preciousplastic.com/solutions/prods Each and every one of them is a low-quality, microplastic-shedding abomination. You can literally see their surface crumbling. Now imagine what UV and heat cycling does to mystery meat plastic like this. Horrible quality, bad for the environment, bad for humans. Stop doing it.

mipselaer 1y ago

Why is Putin in the promotion video?

tonyhart7 1y ago

this project is noble idea and good intention all around that I hope they have full success but this is rough part that everyone need to eat and sometimes being a business is not bad idea at all

miaotech 1y ago

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krisoft 1y ago

This is the first time I’m hearing about “Precious Plastic”, so my comment is entirely based on this one article. The real problem here is that they are lacking a clear and well articulated roadmap. If we give them money, what will they use it for? Will they make new opensource tool designs which has bigger capacity? Easier to maintain? Or smaller and easier to manufacture? Or safer by design? Or lower energy? Or easier to transport? Will they use it to develop forum and wiki software? Will they throw all the donations into a litigation pit? Will they use it to microfund workshops all over the world? Are they planning to do more outreach? If so where and how? I’m not looking for a detailed step by step project plan. But something directional would be great. What will “version 5” give to the world compared to “version 4”? If they can’t answer that then Precious Plastic is indeed in trouble. But the trouble is not from any of those mentioned stresses, but from a lack of vision and direction.

ljm 1y ago
> lack of vision and direction. I've seen this play out more than once during my career and startups with otherwise great concepts end up treading water because the founding team or leadership fails to execute. Being a charismatic sales person might work wonders in terms of attracting funding and talent but it's not enough if you lack the capability to follow through with it. I'd wager that lots of the latest batch of startups that want do-it-all 'product engineers' will collapse for the exact same reason: delegating vision.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
  I've been a "shipper," all my adult life. It's always been my job to Make Things Happen, as opposed to "Make Things Look Like They're Happening." A lot of "Making Things Happen" is boring and un-sexy, but absolutely crucial. I'm always surprised, when I run into folks that are awesome at schmoozing and getting folks to come to the party (I'm not so good at that stuff), and may be extremely creative and talented, but lack the follow-through, to make their dreams a reality. It's usually when folks like that, team up with folks like me, that magic happens. Rarely, you have it in one person.

ljm 1y ago

> We received a €100K donation. Which was amazing, but we decided to give it all to the community so they can continue developing their projects. Not to sustain the organisation itself. It seems a lot of the problems they described are self-inflicted and go a step beyond simple mistakes or errors in judgment. To be honest, I think the request for extra support would be more sincere if the leadership involved in those situations also stepped down and, instead of promising a 'version 5', looked at solving the problems in the org itself. The due diligence just doesn't check out and there is zero indication that the organisation has learned from these problems and not merely acknowledged them. How would you know it's not a scam?

jstummbillig 1y ago
Who solves the problems if the leadership steps down, without any real resources to speak of?
- ljm 1y ago
  I would imagine a condition of the funding would be to restructure and get the right people in place to continue the mission, ideally more responsibly. Like, the entire article is saying "we fucked up in various ways" but there is no accountability piece to speak of. Just an ask for more money for a ground up rebuild.
  - diggan 1y ago
    > Just an ask for more money for a ground up rebuild That seems to misunderstand what they're asking for. As far as I understand, they're asking for money to build version 5, by using everything they built so far. It's not a "ground up rebuild" by any measure, but funding for the next iteration seems to be missing.
    - ljm 1y ago
      I am literally referencing the article: > It will mean rebuilding things from the ground up, which requires much more help and resources than before. In what way is 'ground up rebuild' a misunderstanding of 'rebuilding things from the ground up'?

meindnoch 1y ago

Good. We don't need amateurs producing low-durability microplastic-shedding mixed-resin trinkets.

papaver-somnamb 1y ago

Perhaps narrow your role and allow someone else to be responsible & accountable for driving the business side of things? Take an honest assessment of how you can meaningfully contribute and concentrate on that, and pass the reins over to someone else who specializes in handling reins. Where are you best? Pushing forward on a long-held vision, planting a flag in the ground and rallying everyone to it, while ignoring petty concerns like a positive balance sheet? Great! Delegate that latter one to someone who specializes in it and then cooperate & thrive with them. On the other hand, the plastic industry needs reform. Only about 1/3 of plastic produced is recycled in practice, and even then only once. Hardly the recyclable miracle that the plastic lobby has been messaging on since at least the 1990s. And what is the industry's response? Increased production YOY! Want truly recyclable materials, in practice? Glass. Steel, and some other metals. Fibers, like paper, to an extent. That being said, I see a need for "base-load" plastic. Plastic is useful and we may forever need it, until at least something better comes along. Particular in key single-use applications like health services.

ghuroo1 1y ago

the donation form should be a lot more straightforward for single donations.. it requires too many fields and I can’t do a “fast checkout” like on online stores.. basically a big button sending me to a payment platform so I can just pay and move on.

KnuthIsGod 1y ago

"Lawsuit However after a period of time an accident happened with someone using the machine, which was very unfortunate. And in the US, especially NY this means you need to get lawyers. What happened, who is responsible? Is it the company that hired us all, Precious Plastic (back then operating under One Army Entity) for organising it, was it a result of bad operational instructions, misuse of the machine or a fault in the machine from the community member? We analysed it and are convinced that we are not to blame. But we do not know what a judge is going to say. Meanwhile this has been going on for the last 2 years. Lots of paperwork and documents need to be filed with lawyers that charge up to $600/h, sending emails got painful. Being in a lawsuit in New York is very costly. "

Gracana 1y ago
I wonder what happened. IMO their shredder does not look very safe. It's a device that can cause digital amputation and entanglement and operators are exposed to it 100% of the time they're using the machine, which would classify it as a high-risk hazard. It really should have guarding to make the hazard inaccessible, like a longer infeed chute and a start/stop interlock that prevents it from running unless there's a bin underneath. I suspect it's going to be hard to argue that procedure & policy were appropriate ways to address the risk.

superzamp 1y ago

PS: it's not highly visible in the link but this post is 6 months old [1]. Wondering where they are now, given that they seemed to have less than that in runway. [1] https://community.preciousplastic.com/questions/questions-on-the-article-with-our-problems https://community.preciousplastic.com/questions/questions-on...

James_K 1y ago

These recycling efforts can be quite bad in the long run because they recycle plastic into materials that cannot themselves be recycled. Not sure if that's the case here, but it's something to watch out for.

curtisszmania 1y ago

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lemma_peculiar 1y ago

i find it nigh insane that companies doing good have to deal with the us-american legal system which is only good at extracting money instead of actual justice. what a shame.

its-summertime 1y ago

Give us money or we'll take the ball and go home... Why not donate PP (forums, discussions, designs, etc) to the community?

dyeje 1y ago

Why build your own community software? Sounds like a waste of resources, there are many off the shelf and open source alternatives.

ta20240528 1y ago

Amateur hour.

mc007 1y ago

Hi there, we're working almost 10 years on the subject, also dealing with PreciousPlastic designs, users and problems on a daily basis. From what we can tell, its an extremely violent and fraudulent organization. None of the designs actually worked, nor any of the bold statements can be backed up with evidence. See here the full report : https://forum.osr-plastic.org/t/preciousplastic-review/11066 https://forum.osr-plastic.org/t/preciousplastic-review/11066 Its a scam after all, we know also well from others.