Leading daily goods maker Unicharm Corp. has developed technology for recycling used paper diapers.
The company plans to collect used paper diapers and then disassemble and sterilize them before extracting pulp and other materials to create new paper diapers, it said Thursday. It aims to start selling the recycled diapers as early as April 2021.
Due to population aging, the share of disposable diapers in household garbage is growing each year. Adult diapers in particular -- used at homes, hospitals and various care sites -- are said to become three to four times heavier after use. Adult diapers contain plenty of water, making them more likely to damage incinerators and increase disposal costs for local governments.
To alleviate the situation, Unicharm has been conducting a series of tests since 2016 together with the government of Shibushi, Kagoshima Prefecture, to create recycled paper diapers. In the tests, the city collects used disposable diapers and delivers them to a testing facility to be washed, sterilized using the firm's ozone treatment technology and bleached. Pulp and other substances are then removed.
Unicharm and the Shibushi government have successfully produced prototypes of disposable diapers and toilet paper that use recycled pulp.
They will also study how to make products such as clothes and wet wipes by reprocessing regenerated pulp and cardboard into rayon.
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