How to Dispose of Isopropyl Alcohol (IPA) with Resin? Guide

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Martin has a M.Sc. in physics and has gained many years of experience in industry as a lab manager and quality assurance manager. He has now tested dozens of 3D printers and is happy to share the collected experience with each new article.

Filtering Resin from IPA

Before you dispose of your isopropyl alcohol, you should rather use it again. You can cure the resin that is bound in the alcohol with UV light. Then it sinks to the bottom and can be filtered out of the IPA.

The best way to do this is to fill a clear plastic bottle with the dirty IPA and place it in the sun. Over time, the resin bound in the alcohol will harden and sink to the bottom.

After that, you can filter the bottle content. I always use the resin filter* that I also use to pour the remaining resin from the resin tank of the 3D printer back into the bottle. If you want to be even finer, you can pour the IPA through a coffee filter afterward. This will filter out even finer particles.

The resin residues can then be disposed of in normal household waste as long as they are completely hardened. If they are not yet completely hard and rather slimy, you should leave them open in UV light or sunlight to harden.

You can use the filtered IPA to wash your print objects and clean your 3D printer. You can repeat this process many times until the isopropyl alcohol is unusable and has too much water content.

With normal use of a resin 3D printer, you can get by for several months with a single bottle of isopropyl alcohol if you filter the resin out of it as just described.

Evaporating the IPA

If at any time you find that even the filtered isopropyl alcohol is no longer performing as desired, you should replace it with new alcohol.

But don’t dump the old one down the drain or throw it in the garbage. The best method is to let it evaporate in the open air in the sun.

When you do that, the alcohol evaporates completely. The only thing that remains are the resin residues contained therein.

You’ll be surprised how much there actually is. Even from a small amount of isopropyl alcohol you can end up with a big glob of resin slime.

And that’s the next problem: the resin residues are not hard and can’t be disposed of that way, they rather turn into a slime that has to be treated further.

You have to let this resin slime dry in the air and cure it under UV light. The best way to do this is to crumble it up and make it as small as possible. Then the sun or the UV light has a larger attack surface and can harden the resin better.

Once the remains are completely hardened, you can dispose of them in the household waste.

Disposal in the Drain / Garbage

The proper disposal of resin is a tedious process. Many quickly lose their patience and throw the liquid resin directly into the trash or pour it down the sink. Please don’t do that!

Liquid synthetic resin is extremely toxic and particularly harmful to the environment. Even small amounts are enough to kill organisms living in the water. You must treat liquid resin as an aggressive chemical and handle it accordingly.

Dispose of Paper Tissues and Gloves with Resin

Liquid resin is best removed with isopropyl alcohol. You will need larger quantities to clean your print objects. You can dispose of this as described above.

But what about smaller quantities on paper towels and gloves? Here, too, UV light comes into play.

Paper towels and gloves that have resin residue are also best left in the sun until the resin has hardened. After that, you can throw everything in the normal household waste.

This guide explains everything in detail.

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