Fed up buying the kids new sandals this summer?

Look no further:

Reprap - self-replicating machine

I love the idea of just bunging in another milk bottle:

The RepRap needs to get much faster before it can even begin to realise its potential, but it is still early days for a device - even though it has been dreamt of since the dawn of the enlightenment - and Bowyer is not done yet. Soon, he plans to design a shredder for the machine, so old items created on the RepRap can be returned to granules of plastic to be reused. Think about it, he says: "You could shred your milk bottles and make a pair of sandals. What's more, when the child grows out of the shoes, you shred them, add another milk bottle, rescale the design and you have a new pair." If nothing else, the RepRap could be the ultimate recycling machine.