Recycled diapers!

Interesting.

I've often wondered if the sap can be dehydrated sterilised and used again, I know at the last big event I went to there was a guy present who took the nappy bin bags away to recycle somehow but never got the chance to ask how or which parts.
 
Haha I just read the same article. Seems like it could be good for the environment so that's great. I'm sure I read somewhere there are a lot of disposable diapers going straight to landfill.
 
Aimeesaurus said:
Haha I just read the same article. Seems like it could be good for the environment so that's great. I'm sure I read somewhere there are a lot of disposable diapers going straight to landfill.
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I think most of them go to incinerators generally.

I did some math on it a while back, based on the size of the large bins used at my nursery, how many children there are in nappies and how many changes they go through, how full the bins are after a week etc.

Given compression ratios to squash them all down into compact cubes and then stacking these cubes side by side and on top of each other, as well as a rough number and average size of nurseries in my city.

My cities nurseries alone would produce enough compressed blocks of nappies (about 2 foot cubes) to cover a football pitch with layers about 16 foot high in just one year, and that is only the nurseries nappies, not ones used at home or on weekends, nor adult nappies or older children still in them.
 
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Belarin said:
I think most of them go to incinerators generally.

I did some math on it a while back, based on the size of the large bins used at my nursery, how many children there are in nappies and how many changes they go through, how full the bins are after a week etc.

Given compression ratios to squash them all down into compact cubes and then stacking these cubes side by side and on top of each other, as well as a rough number and average size of nurseries in my city.

My cities nurseries alone would produce enough compressed blocks of nappies (about 2 foot cubes) to cover a football pitch with layers about 16 foot high in just one year, and that is only the nurseries nappies, not ones used at home or on weekends, nor adult nappies or older children still in them.
Click to expand...
Oh wow, that's a lot! Incinerators make a lot more sense then. We'd have an actual diaper mountain if they didn't burn them lol
 
I've been wondering about this myself. It's such a huge percentage of waste volume, and with electric production rising, and prices declining, I've often wondered if there's s viable way to break down disposable diaper waste and reuse certain components like maybe the plastic backing or sap, and also a way to somehow clean the pulp for re-use elsewhere.
 
Well, i have to say it, seems like a shitty situation.

Ok, seriously, recycling them should be possible.

Not sure what they would be made into again, i doubt it would be diapers again, but perhaps planting media, or fill for packaging or something like that would be a good idea.

I mean the paper filled packaging seems to be getting more popular and if that was old used and cleaned diaper material, i dont think anyone would mind that, and no sense using fresh wood pulp for the packaging when there is pulp from say a recycled diaper to use.

yes, have to steralize them and bleach not sure if that is necessary, maybe even darken the material to a uniform brown color, as people might not like pee colored fill in there knowing its old diapers...Just my thought
 
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