3D print farm owner Jan Hrebabecky has unveiled plans to 3D print a replica of France’s famous Eiffel Tower ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Set to be installed at an Olympic festival in the north of his native Czech Republic, the miniature Eiffel Tower will stand 14 meters-tall, and be made from recycled fishing waste.
To concoct the materials needed for the tower, Thai fishermen are gathering, sorting, and cleaning plastics, before sending them for granulation. From there, another Czech firm has been charged with turning this into filament, which can be used at Hrebabecky’s 3DDen print farm.
However, even after several processing steps, the resulting filament can crystallize, meaning that an entirely new 3D printer has had to be assembled for the initiative.
Fortunately, 3D printing at scale has long been on Hrebabecky’s agenda, so he has been happy to develop the technology. To date, his company has focused on making small items like figurines, but he now wants to expand into additive manufacturing interior decorations.
At present, 3DDen’s enhanced print farm is hard at work, manufacturing 1,600 steel-reinforced pieces which will be assembled into a structure strong enough to hold an entire helicopter. Once ready, the replica Eiffel Tower will be displayed near Most Lake, where local residents will be invited to take part in 52 different Olympic sports in the run up to Paris 2024.
But with the structure being made from the equivalent of 800,000 plastic bottles, event organizer Nada Cerna says the project is about more than just sport; it can drive eco-awareness as well.
“It’s very important for us. Oceans are a place where people do sports like sailing and windsurfing,” said Cerna, the Olympic Committee manager in charge of the event. “So if we can highlight the problem in this way and maybe help a bit, we’re really happy.”
