In 2012, Dave Hakkens started working on Precious Plastic as a part of his studies at the Design Academy in Eindhoven.

[16][17][3] All the information produced by the project such as codes, drawings, and source materials are available for free online under the Creative Commons Attribution - Share Alike International 4.0 license.

[24][25] With a grant from Dane County Arts and partnered with Community GroundWorks, the nonprofit that oversees Troy Kids’ Garden, and hackerspace Sector 67, a branch of Precious Plastic was launched in Madison, Wisconsin.

[26] In September 2021, One Army announced a "Verified" Precious Plastic workspaces program to give recognition to "high quality recycling work".

The project will continue in a gateway seminar and three art classes, and they may add an off-campus trip to a Precious Plastic site.

[30] Engineering students at the Monash University chapter created a Precious Plastic one-metre cube portable recycling machine to transport to events for display.