Seattle

Elise Hacking Carr is senior production editor for Print & Promo Marketing magazine, and managing editor for PRINTING United Journal.

Most consumer 3-D printers use "ink" made of colored plastic line.

 But despite the self-reliant and Earth-friendly bent of many 3-D printing hobbyists, it's surprisingly difficult to find 3-D printing line, or filament, that's made of recycled plastic—even though the type of plastic used, ABS plastic, is easily recyclable from old plastic bottles.

 Now a Seattle-based entrepreneur, Liz Havlin, aims to change that with a machine that turns recycled plastic into filament suitable for loading into any mainstream 3-D printer.

RPI, a digital-image printing company in Seattle, is announcing Wednesday its purchase of DPI in Atlanta for an undisclosed amount.

DPI specializes in personalized web-to-print products for large companies and has 27 employees. RPI chief executive Rick Bellamy said the purchase will expand RPI's reach to the East Coast, reduce shipping costs and waits and expand its personalized-print products.

Started as a family-owned commercial printer in 1979, RPI creates the personalized-photo books and greeting cards consumers order online from photo sharing and printing companies.

The small but rapidly growing market for digital-photo merchandise is worth an estimated $2 billion.

PaperPlus—the stores division of Unisource Worldwide—continues to embark on an aggressive expansion program across the United States, opening a new store location in Kansas City, Kan. The new PaperPlus Kansas City store follows the recently opened PaperPlus store locations in Indianapolis, Seattle and Charlotte, N.C.

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