Waste not: Squeezing new life out of Italy's dirty diapers

A joint venture between Procter & Gamble? and Italian healthcare group Angelini is working to create a sustainable recycling loop that would allow dirty diapers to be turned into plastic bottle caps and viscose clothing.
More than 20 million tonnes of disposable diapers are burned or dumped in landfills globally every year - a major environmental problem since their use became widespread in the 1960s and 1970s.
Part of the problem is that collecting, cleaning and breaking diapers into their component parts - plastic, cellulose and super absorbent polymer - is tricky and expensive.
The other issue is that no-one has been able to establish a market for the recycled output, dooming previous commercial efforts to failure.
Fater, a Pescara, Italy-based business that became a joint venture in 1992, believes it will be able to address these issues, backed by governments, consumers and other companies goaded into action by a new global awareness of the looming crisis of plastics pollution.
The new Italian government, in particular, has made finding "circular economy" solutions a pillar of its populist agenda.
"Nappies are made of the highest quality plastics and we've shown they can be...

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