CZ PLAST prints a full-scale public bench from recycled plastic.

A city bench doesn’t usually get much thought beyond “does it hold weight and survive the weather.” For the town of Litomyšl in the Czech Republic, CZ Plast used that ordinary brief as a proving ground for something less ordinary: a full-scale outdoor bench, 3D printed entirely from recycled plastic, using large format additive manufacturing (LFAM).

Aibuild CAM, an Aibuild software for large format additive manufacturing build preparation and toolpath generation, was used to take the bench from CAD model to a production-ready print.

The brief was specific: manufacture a durable, full-scale bench from recycled plastic without compromising the original design concept. That’s a harder ask than it sounds. A geometry that looks fine on screen doesn’t always deposit cleanly at 2.1 metres long, and public furniture has to survive a lot more than a studio prototype.

The bench geometry was prepared for printing in Aibuild CAM. CZ PLAST used it to optimise toolpaths and print parameters for reliable deposition, efficient material use, and stable printing across the large-scale geometry, without reworking the designer’s original form.

The whole bench was printed on CZ PLAST’s Hans Weber DXR AE30, driven by a KUKA robotic arm. It’s the kind of industrial setup where toolpath planning matters more than it does on a desktop machine: a bad path choice on a part this size costs hours of print time and kilograms of material, not minutes and grams.

CZ PLAST credits Aibuild CAM’s workflow for letting them iterate quickly and prepare production-ready toolpaths with confidence, even on a complex, full-scale part.

The bench was printed from PETG waste, in keeping with the project’s sustainability goal: proving that LFAM can produce durable architectural elements with less material waste than conventional manufacturing, while recycling plastic that would otherwise go unused.

Once printed, the bench needed less than an hour of standard post-processing before it was ready for installation in Litomyšl.

Key stats:

• Material: PETG waste
• Print time: 24 hours total
• Dimensions: 2100 x 650 x 800mm
• Weight: approximately 95kg
• Post-processing: under 1 hour

Conventional street furniture is usually moulded or fabricated from stock materials, a route that works well at volume but offers little design freedom for a one-off, sculptural piece. LFAM flips that trade-off: CZ PLAST could print a single, full-scale, design-led bench directly from recycled material, with no tooling and no minimum run.

For public infrastructure projects that want a distinctive, sustainable piece rather than an off-the-shelf bench, that’s a meaningfully different starting point.

Turning a design concept into a 95kg outdoor bench, from recycled waste plastic, without losing the shape the designer intended, is exactly the kind of project LFAM should be proving itself on. We’re glad Aibuild CAM helped CZ PLAST get there quickly and confidently, and we’re looking forward to seeing what they print next.

CZ PLAST s.r.o. is a Czech manufacturer based near Pardubice, established in rotational moulding of plastic products, that has expanded into large format additive manufacturing with recycled materials.