The first man-made plastic—created in 1862 as a substitute for the ivory used to make billiard balls—was a bioplastic. Over the last 156 years, the plastics industry has continued to innovate with bioplastics, expanding their properties and the feedstocks from which they come. 

There’s been a great deal of press about the benefits of metal 3D printing, and rightly so. We are only beginning to experience the impact that this technology will have on all aspects of manufacturing.

Taking a part that was assembled from several components and reducing it to one 3D-printed part has obvious benefits like weight reduction. But there are also other value propositions that start from the beginning of the design phase and reach towards end-use safety and reliability.