No waste
3D printing or additive manufacturing, as the name says, manufactures products by adding material layer upon layer. Only the material that is needed for the end product is added, without waste.
Compare that to a traditional subtractive proses, where 60% or even more of the starting material is removed to arrive at the final product, leaving a heap of contaminated waste that needs to be cleaned and regenerated if that is possible at all.
In addition, 3D printing skips traditional production steps that required special patterns, tooling and fixtures, all generating waste that can now be avoided. For example, traditional casting processes required the production of a pattern from wood or plastic. Waste was generated producing the pattern, and then the pattern itself would end up as waste as well. Using 3D printing, the entire pattern is no longer required saving all that material.
