Waste-Made 3D Printers

Afate Gnikou is a Togolese inventor who created his own impressive 3D printer entirely from a collection of electronic waste gathered from landfills. Since he became interested in the possibilities of 3D printing, Gnikou has been on a mission to bring awareness to the large amounts of electronic waste that end up in landfills across Togo, Nigeria and Ghana.

Now, Gnikou is hoping to make it both affordable and accessible for the people living with disabilities in his own community to create custom prostheses as an alternative to standard one-size-fits-all medical prostheses.

3D printing technology has given people around the world the tools to tap into their inner makers, but it has also inspired many others to try their hand at making their own additive manufacturing system from scratch.