"Filabot is a desktop extruding system, capable of grinding various types of plastics, to make spools of plastic filament for 3D printers. [...] The Filabot can process things such as: milk jugs, soda bottles, various other types of plastics, and bad prints, to make new filament for a future print."

"A matrix of nearly 80 adapter bricks that enable complete interoperability between ten popular children’s construction toys."

"The fungus called Pestalotiopsis microspora can subsist on a diet of polyurethane alone, and do so in an anaerobic environment, according to the researchers who found it."

"The model, an official version of which costs £28 from Games Workshop, has been previously listed on a 3D printing community website, but the plans were reportedly pulled after a takedown notice was issued."

"Place a rubber duck on your monitor and describe your problems to it. [...] Once a problem is described in sufficient detail, its solution is obvious."

"Their process is always silent, controlled and structured by repetitive movements as the machines transform a single material - plastic, wax, metal or stone - into peculiar objects."

How to build a lighter-than-air sunlight-fuelled balloon from four bin liners and some sellotape.

"Peeling a roll of ordinary sticky tape [in a vacuum] can generate 100 milliwatt pulses of X-rays, enough to capture a human finger on X-ray film, according to a new study by UCLA scientists."

"France's National Museum of Natural History on Tuesday unveiled the world's first 'plastinated' squid -- a 6.5-metre-long (21.25-feet) deep-sea beast donated by New Zealand and named in honour of a creature featuring in Maori legend."

"I have resolved to 'save' one square mile of ocean by collecting 46,000 pieces of litter whilst walking on the beaches near my home." Fran Crowe's project is now complete, and archived with photos, catalogued and colour-coordinated.

"The top 100 terms for each year were categorized using the Dewey Decimal system, and mapped onto a grid. Holes were drilled into sheets of plexiglass whose sizes correspond to their frequency. For example, 'war' is the biggest hole in 1945."

Fake plastic wedding cakes with a single, real slice. "After the couple's 'feeding each other' act, the display cake is taken back into the kitchen and the guests are served regular sheet cakes from the local bakery or wholesale store."

"Mongolian herdsman Bao Xishun was called in after the dolphins swallowed plastic used around their pool at an aquarium in Fushun, north-east China. Attempts to use instruments failed as the dolphins contracted their stomachs."

"Pen strokes made in the air are recorded with Motion Capture and become 3D digital files; these are then materialised through Rapid Prototyping into real pieces of furniture."

Tetris milk crates on a concrete wall.

"Plastic bags that fly around in the wind are a lot of fun to watch but once they become lodged in tree branches, they don't do much. With this in mind, I made some tape giraffes to eat this debris."

Giant plastic phone handsets, with cables to plug them into your computer's microphone/speaker sockets, for making calls across the Internet. USB is on the way.

"Because Big Loader operates sequentially, it can be considered a real-world computer program. [...] Looping becomes very graphic with Big Loader." Excellent. I used to have one of these, hadn't thought what it might have taught me.

"I enjoy exploring [...] shipping ports and industrial junk yards, where the accumulated detritus of our consumption is exposed like eroded geological layers in the Grand Canyon. There I find evidence of a kind of slow-motion apocalypse in progress."

Inedible. "You'll make every cocktail an adventurous frolic to the depths of the sea when you have a colorful 1-1/2" plastic squid perched on the rim of your glass."

Holly genetically re-engineers the remains of a dead Christmas tree. All it needs now are some blinding green fairy lights in the background.

Steve O'Shea and Gunther von Hagens collaborate: "They’re so heavy, they collapse under their own weight. You lose the lovely cylindrical mantle and arms."

Sealed and dated plastic cubes containing gathered New York litter.

Interconnecting motor-feedback bright-plastic lumps. "[A] dog can be constructed and then taught to gesture and walk by twisting its body and legs. The dog will then repeat those movements and walk repeatedly."

In the style of Simon Quinlank. "Whilst many [...] collect lids without any particular reference to the letters printed on them or the colour of the lid itself, other collectors like to collect the whole alphabet in each colour, in each cap series."

Sheeting made from half-heartedly-recycled plastic, where its previous incarnations are still blurrily visible.

Amusingly edible food wrapping, made from egg-white protein and shellfish chitin.

"Thousands of turtles, birds and other marine animals are killed each year after mistaking the millions of bags in the world's oceans for squid and jellyfish."

Translating pixel artwork into melty plastic. Not quite as impressive as it sounds.

Strange plastic-Meccano, intended for building "either a computer case or anything that is not computer related".

"The intended viewer of The Hand Up Project is some one who happens to come upon a land hermit crab that is traversing a beach while wearing on its back a small, fabricated plastic house bearing a corporate logo."

Another tedious sequel to "Zombies!!!", this time including 100 plastic zombie dogs.

Microscopic polymer waste is everywhere. I still enjoy Ronald Wright's vision of 20th-century humanity laying down a polycarbon layer as a mineable fuel for distant-future earth species.