About PreciousPlastic

Machines

We’ve built all designs over many years. There’s not a single machine which doesn’t has major flaws or issues. Some could be used on an occasional and hobby basis but that’s about it. Issues have been usually ignored and censored.

Platform

The platform currently consist out of a marketplace, a Discord server and directory page for users and knowhow articles. All places are under control of PreciousPlastic and it’s close friends (Bazar sellers). Censorship, bullying, manipulation is the normality. There’s no dialog or consensus with the community. There have been also multiple cases of massive data losses, including relations and friendships built over many years.

Marketplace, ‘Bazar’

This place is being manipulated since many years, in favor of PreciousPlastic-HQ and their friends. Vendors and stakeholders have no say and need to agree to always changing rules. Essential communication outside of the Bazar is prohibited and results in account suspension. PreciousPlastic-HQ is also reading client communication and used that information for pay-up or else blackmail.

There’s also a back door. On the main homepage, users can purchase so called ‘starterkits’. These are fabricated by close friends of PreciousPlastic-HQ. These kits are sold at exorbitant prices to NGOs.

The damages caused by these methods did cost the community jobs, innovation and potential projects.

‘Community platform’

This part is being communicated as solution to ’tackle global problems’ but in fact, it’s using outdated technology, depending on proprietary services. It found no recognition in the Opensource community. It’s far from usable in all regards. Other than that, this place has been also used to manifest PreciousPlastic’s cult aspects, eg: presence in exchange for worshipping and freeloading.

Discord

Since the introduction of Discord, exchange, innovation and the project in general degraded to a bare minimum. It’s serving mostly to push HQ updates. From the 10k claimed users, there’s only a handful of active users left. Also here, PreciousPlastic-HQ uses all possibilities to shape opinion in their favour. Critics and feedback has been removed on a regular basis.

Myths

Create a bussines from waste

After hundreds of hours support work, over 4 years, we can’t tell of any good evidence to back up this claim. Many tried, many failed. The general consensus is to consider it as a hobby. None of the machines is suited for professional activities. In spite of these facts, PreciousPlastic keeps communicating it as ‘solution to tackle plastic pollution’, including - but also targeting - minors.

As for ‘machine builders’. Also here this claim doesn’t sum up. It’s an extremely risky and exhausting activity. On top of building immature machines, builders have to deal with unfair competition of the establishment as well obeying to rules and conditions, changed at any time. We have seen several cases that PreciousPlastic-HQ removes vendor accounts from their marketplace, for bogus reasons, with no prior warning or discussion. In all cases, those vendors have been contributing over 4 years, taking all the blame and risks.

Creating useful products

We know only a few cases but also here, these items find their place in gift or artisanal shops, at best. We know only of a handful of established companies who opt in plastic on a trial base but using professional variants of the machines.

Opensource community

As maintainer of the library and data about PreciousPlastic and it’s orbit, we can’t really confirm this claim. Most of the data produced by the community is broke or often useless. There’s is little to no commitment or contributions. The reality is that it’s rather dominated and controlled by proprietary vendors with no actual involvements in Opensource. And they do everything in their power to keep it that way.

As for Opensource, all files lack structure, standards and best practices. Most files are published in binaries or rather useless formats, making it hard to impossible to extend or fix the designs.

The Team

The team consist out of rather unrelated people. Til today, we haven’t heard of good things about them. Opensource contributions by volunteers have been practically weaponized and used as leverage to control the project, stripping off their credits as well.

Other than power claims, we’ve rarely seen them doing support work or updating the documentation for known issues. It’s a mystery to us, a so called Opensource project, controlled by people with little to no interest and passion.

Here some of the remarks:

• “We didn’t expect anyone to take this serious”
• About machine issues: “We hear that all the time”
• After tricking out key contributors: “It’s your own fault to build on our thin ice”
• Volunteers, turning their back, at the gates of v4: “We don’t want to participate in a cult”
• A moderator (and bazar seller) to a contributor, after posting a link to a peer project: “it won’t be good for you to support them”
• “You are not allowed to give any suppport”
• After mentioning alternative ways to publish knowledge on Discord, other than their platform: “nobody asked for, once again and you will be banned”
• “What about you leave the Mafia alone and enjoy your workshop”
• About new Bazar rules: “Like with Uber, they are also not allowed to exchange details …”
• Insider comment, “That are not good people. There’s a reason why I moved far away …”
• “We’d like to see us as single source of truth”
• Professional users, visiting v4 in Eindhoven: “It was like waiting for an audition with the king ..”
• After privacy violations: “This is a business!”
• “Nobody stays long in PreciousPlastic, don’t get too close!”
• “We don’t like how they treat the community”
• “We are tired of all that. We don’t know how we ever get out of that”

This is just the tip of iceberg.

Conclusions

PreciousPlastic can be considered as failed Opensource effort regarding small scale plastic recycling. Some understand it as scam, some as project and others as easy-to-cash-in way on clueless people, baited with false promises and prospects. During hundreds of hours of support and sales conversations, we often had to rectify bold claims but also push many people back from these false hopes and too big expectations. PreciousPlastic - HQ however understood well to hostage the legacy, worked out by the community, for their own agenda. Whilst the community struggles to find meaning and creating a sustainable activity, PreciousPlastic HQ and their privileged ‘friends’ created a system for themselves, profiteering from donations, past contributions (provided by past volunteers), and back door sales. Til today, we haven’t seen a single good discussion or seek for a common consensus for the project’s faith. On the contrary, discussions have been hijacked and inconvenient facts and comments removed.

None of the communicated numbers add up, nor the claims can be backed up with substantial evidence. We can clearly speak about a corrupt system which specifically targets individuals, making them collect funds, to be collected by privileged ‘vendors’ or the HQ itself.

The so called ‘machine builders’, carrying out the highest risks and damages face a bitter reality of becoming a complice, and mercenary, with no good hopes for a stable future.

PreciousPlastic’s HQ communication efforts mostly serve the purpose of worshipping and indoctrinating users whenever possible. There are smart rules to lock users into a closed eco system, and sadly ejects them when no longer of use. For a project which aims to ’tackle’ plastic pollution, we found it very weird that there are in fact no relations with peer projects, related efforts and even sponsorships.

Status Quo

• Opensource
• prospect