Fed-up with a growing mountain of stinking disposable nappies, a Dutch firm on Tuesday started building the country’s first recycling plant to turn poo into profit.
Plastic from the nappies extracted by the facility in the central Dutch town of Weurt near Nijmegen will have a second life as household items like garden furniture or flower pots.
“In total, we plan to process some 15,000 tonnes of nappies a year,” Harrie Arends, spokesman for the ARN energy company which will run the plant, said.
Worldwide, disposable diapers are a major source of pollution with millions of tonnes being dumped in landfills every year, forming a major health hazard according to environmental watchdogs.
Slated to start its first recycling operations by December, the factory will initially have one steel “reactor” which uses high-pressure steam to separate plastic compounds in disposable nappies from urine and faeces.
“The old disposable nappies are heated to 250 degrees Celsius under 40 bars of pressure and everything becomes liquified,” said Mr. Arends.
“Once cooled down, the plastic compound granules float on top and will be separated from the rest of the content which is basically sewage.”
The plastic is then put through a granulator to be used for a variety of goods.
The sewage generates gas and is turned into fuel for power stations and fertiliser, while the rest is piped to a nearby sewage treatment plant.
