Dutch firm aims to turn dirty diapers to furniture
A Dutch company is planning a recycling operation that will turn used diapers to furniture.
ARN energy company is going to collect dirty baby nappies and turn them into garden furniture or flower pots.
The said firm is going to start its operation in turning stinking disposable diapers to useful furniture this coming December.
“In total, we plan to process some 15,000 tonnes of nappies a year,” Harrie Arends, spokesman for the ARN said.
The Dutch company, initially, will have one steel “reactor”. According to Arends, the reactors will have a 5,000 liter-capacity. They are planning to build another two.
The reactor will separate the plastic compounds in disposable nappies from urine and faeces through high-pressure steam.
“The old disposable nappies are heated to 250 degrees Celsius under 40 bars of pressure and everything becomes liquified. Once cooled down, the plastic compound granules float on top and will be separated from the rest of the content which is basically sewage,” Arends explain.
Then, the granulator will process the plastic that will be useful for a variety of goods.
Meanwhile, the sewage generates gas that will become fuel for power stations and fertilizer. Other materials go to the nearby sewage treatment plant.
On the other hand, turning diapers to furniture has a number of engineering challenges, Arends admits.
“One is to turn it into a fully-automated system in which the nappies go in one end and the product comes out the other,” he said.
144,000 tonnes of dirty nappies are produced every year in the Netherlands, based on a statement from environmental organisation Milieu Centraal.
Disposable diapers are one of the major sources of pollution all over the globe, report said.
People’s health is at stake because of this.
