How we made machines available to people who can't build them

The Bazar is the marketplace on our site where anyone can buy and sell the things they need to recycle. It makes machines available to people who cannot build their own, and it gives builders a place to earn a living. One shop, run by recyclers, for recyclers.

Plenty of people in our community only need the blueprints. They have the skills, they build the machine, they get to work.

But not everyone does. Designers, educators, artists, all kinds of people want to recycle without first becoming machinists. By 2017 a lot of them were discovering our movement, and it mattered to us that none of them got shut out. It also mattered that they could find what they needed nearby, not on the other side of the planet.

We already had a global network of machine builders. What we did not have was any way to see who was making what, what was in stock, and what it cost.

If we did nothing, each builder would have to set aside time and energy (that they could be using to recycle) to set up individual shops through different e-commerce platforms. Then they would have to spend even more time and energy promoting those shops, learning to market themselves, doing promotions, etc…


To make their lives easier, we centralized.

We built an open marketplace where anyone can buy and sell anything to do with plastic recycling. The idea is simple, and it does a few useful things at once:

Machines and molds, ready to go. Need a shredder, a sheetpress, or a mold for carabiner hooks and cannot build it yourself? Find it here, finished and ready to use.

Less time lost to searching. Instead of hunting down suppliers all over the internet, you search the Bazar or the map and find someone near you.

Filter by local specifications. If you need machines with a regional certification, specific voltage, or plug type, you can refine your search to find exactly what you need.

No cost to post. Unlike many other online marketplaces, the Bazar gives builders a dedicated webpage to post their products, and they only pay a 5% processing fee when their items sell (not before)!

Buyers and sellers connect on the Bazar every day. There are listings for everything from machines, to machine kits, replacement parts, moulds for every kind of machine, raw materials, and finished products. If you are a recycler, interested in becoming one, or simply want to buy recycled products, our community made this place a one-stop recycling shop.

You can buy fully finished machines!

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You can buy machine kits, machine parts, and moulds for every kind of machine!

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You can buy raw recycled material to work with!

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You can buy products made from recycled materials!

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The Bazar started slow in 2017, then found its feet. By the end of 2019 it was running around €15,000 a month and had moved roughly €200,000 in total.

Machines and parts were the biggest category, which made sense, since it was one of the only places in the world to find them. Sellers grew their own businesses on it. One sheetpress maker in India has now shipped machines to customers in 18 different countries.

Plastic waste is in every corner of the world. You can only start recycling if you have the tools to do it. The Bazar set up a scalable infrastructure that can supply machines and moulds to those that want to buy them anywhere in the world. It is active in over 50 countries and more than 1,000 locations, with more added every year.