SmileDirectClub maintains an agreement with HP with which it has created a sustainable production model with which it can manufacture up to 75,000 dental aligners daily with 3D printing technology

Plastics are such malleable materials that they continue to provide benefits even after their first useful life. The SmileDirectClub company announced that it has developed denture molds with recycled plastic, a design driven by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The company explained that the confinements have given an extra boost to its sustainability models, which is why right now it is betting more than ever on the creation of molds that come from recycled plastics that are ground, sanitized and reassembled in molds for orthodontic procedures to clients in Mexico and the United States.

Promote the Circular Economy

The company uses an average of 24 plastic molds per patient throughout its medical procedures, so the recycling of denture molds becomes a great boost for the circular economy.

With 1.5 million customers in the world, the company manufactures approximately 50 million molds derived from various computer products such as HP printer cartridges that, thanks to its technology, allow proper reuse of these materials.

In fact, SmileDirectClub maintains an agreement with HP with which it has created a sustainable production model with which it can manufacture up to 75,000 dental aligners daily with 3D printing technology, according to AM Querétaro.

With this agreement, after their use in the aligner manufacturing process, more than 40,000 3D printed parts are collected daily and sent to HP to be recycled as nylon pellets. These pellets, it is reported, can be reused in different articles for various industries.

With this upcycling scheme, SmileDirectClub managed to produce approximately 6.7 million individual 3D printed parts and recycled around 108 metric tons of consumables.