Getting Started with Filament Printing

How to get into the hobby of 3D filament printing

Getting Started with Resin Printing

In Getting Started with 3D Printing we’ve covered the basics of 3D printing: how filament printing works, the advantages and disadvantages, the safety considerations and how to pick a printer.

Let’s go deeper into these subjects and focus on how to print with a filament printer.

General Knowledge before printing

Safety

I might repeat myself here but, as we say, safety first.

Filament printing is generally lower risk than resin printing, but it is not emission-free. During printing, heated thermoplastics release airborne particles and gases. The type and quantity depend on:

Ultrafine particles (UFPs)

Most filament printers emit large quantities of Ultrafine Particles (UFPs), typically defined as particles smaller than 100 nm.

Studies measuring desktop FDM printers have reported emissions ranging from millions to billions of particles per minute depending on material and settings.

Common filaments such as PLA, PETG, and TPU primarily emit UFPs, with generally lower VOC emissions than engineering materials. However, they should not be considered harmless.

Because UFPs are extremely small, they can remain airborne for long periods and penetrate deep into the respiratory tract.

Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)

Some filaments emit significant amounts of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) during printing.

Materials commonly associated with higher VOC emissions include: ABS, ASA, Nylon, HIPS, Polycarbonate blends

ABS is particularly well studied because it releases styrene during printing. Styrene is classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as “probably carcinogenic to humans” (Group 2A).

VOC and particle emissions are generally higher for ABS than for PLA under comparable conditions.

Higher nozzle temperatures typically increase emissions.

Carbon fiber and glass fiber reinforced filaments

Filaments reinforced with chopped carbon fiber or glass fiber (PLA-CF, PETG-CF, Nylon-CF, etc.) are used to improve stiffness and dimensional stability.

However, these materials also:

These filaments use short chopped fibers, not continuous fibers. They are not equivalent to asbestos, but dust exposure should still be minimized.

When sanding reinforced prints:

Practical recommendations

For hobbyist printing:

Respiratory protection is advisable when:

Unlike resin printing, handling fully printed filament parts is generally considered low risk.

Sources

This hobby remains relatively recent in widespread home use, and scientific research is still limited, with varying experimental conditions across studies. Much of the practical information available also comes from hobbyist testing and YouTube sources, which can be useful but are not always controlled or reproducible. Peer-reviewed studies provide the most reliable scientific baseline for understanding particle and VOC emissions, although real-world conditions may differ from laboratory setups.

Environment and Waste Disposal

Filament printing produces mainly plastic waste, which is generally not handled by standard household recycling systems.

Most consumer filaments (PLA, PETG, ABS, etc.) are rarely accepted in municipal recycling streams due to sorting limitations, mixed material properties, and additives or pigments that complicate recycling.

Some materials are technically biodegradable under industrial conditions (such as PLA), but this does not occur in typical home composting or landfill environments.

Common waste produced by filament printing:

To reduce environmental impact, you can:

Recycling programms

There are a few programs that accept and recycle filament waste, but they typically require careful sorting by material type.

Well-known examples include:

CNC Kitchen has a detailed video demonstrating filament recycling workflows. The general conclusion is that, for most hobby users, the time, cost, and complexity often outweigh the environmental benefit at small scale.

Alternative approaches such as melting plastic into molds exist, but are generally labor-intensive and not widely practical for typical hobby use.

Multi color prints

Multi-color printing give you a cool result without minimal effort but also increases print time and material waste.

On systems with single-nozzle multi-material setups, color changes require purging previous material before printing the next color. This can result in significant waste relative to the final part, depending on the model and settings.

Filament Waste

I learned the hard way

Newer printer systems using multiple nozzles or toolheads can reduce purge waste, but are still relatively uncommon in consumer setups (2026).

Some slicers and tools, such as Hueforge, allow color variation through layer-based or gradient techniques, reducing the need for frequent filament swaps. Here are some example results

In general, designs optimized for fewer color changes produce less waste, look for “No AMS” in the design’s title.

An alternative approach is to print single-color parts and paint them.

Choosing your filament

Choosing a filament can feel overwhelming at first.
There are dozens of materials, blends, additives, and marketing terms, but most beginners only need to understand a few common filament types.

Bambu Lab’s filament guide is a good overview when you want a quick understanding of a material, its properties, and its printing requirements.

The most common filament materials you will encounter are:

As a beginner, you will most likely start with:

You will also quickly encounter variations of these materials such as:

These variants can change:

Many specialty filaments print differently from their base material despite sharing the same name.

For most beginners, standard PLA is usually the easiest and safest starting point.

Personally, I mainly use PLA Matte for decorative prints because I prefer its surface finish when painting models. The matte texture tends to hide layer lines and reflections better than glossy PLA, and I have generally found primer coverage easier and more uniform on matte prints.