Approximately 8 million disposable nappies are used in the United Kingdom each day, which is roughly 3 billion a year. The UK recycles plastics, paper, bottles, cans and glass, and despite recycling becoming increasingly popular, we still do not recycle our nappies. It’s reported that the UK has the highest level of landfill in Europe with 80% of the generated 29 million tonnes of waste going to landfill sites.
Knowaste is a Canadian company which aims to bring an end to landfill or the incineration of nappies. Knowaste is an environmentally friendly and cost efficient solution to the recycling of nappies and re-uses the materials to make other products and even fuel the company’s factories. Knowaste is currently recycling hundreds of thousands of nappies in the US and proposes to move to tackle the UK’s nappies later this year. The recycling site will be in Birmingham and it has been reported that Knowaste will begin with by tackling waste from nurseries, hospitals and nursing homes.
The volume of waste produced by Europe is exceeding the amount of available land for dumping. A directive of the European Union has introduced targets to decrease the amount of municipal waste dumped at landfill sites by 2010. Roy Brown, Knowaste’s chief executive, has said that this is an opportune time to move to the UK both politically and economically, particularly as increasing oil prices will add value to the plastics that can be salvaged from nappies.
The company’s technology is able to separate the nappy and remove all the materials ready for recycling. The absorbent polymers, plastics and wood pulp can then sold on and recycled into other products.
Knowaste’s figures demonstrate that 800,000 tonnes of bedliners, incontinence goods and nappies are generated annually and end up in landfill sites, two thirds of this 800,000 tonnes are nappies alone. The site in Birmingham will have to establish how these nappies and other disposals are going to get from the homes to the factory. There are a few options, one being kerbside collection; similarly to current recycling schemes, the used nappies would be in a separate bag and collected from the homes. Different councils may insist on central disposal points, in which case the other option would be for families to take the nappies to the disposal point for collection.
Mr Brown stated that it is probable that there will be a few solutions, and added that there is no reason nappies cannot be collected in the same way as any other recyclable products as “despite what some parents may think, dirty nappies aren’t classed as hazardous waste.”
According to Mr Brown the National Health Service has shown interest in the scheme and although no local councils has committed to the scheme as yet, there has been much enthusiasm about the potential solution to cutting landfill levels.
Knowaste aims to have opened sites in 5 other major cities in the UK by 2013, which the company claims would reduce the nappy waste at landfill sites by 13%.
There has been much debate about Knowaste’s scheme; Nichola Ainsworth supports the concept as she is a user of disposable nappies and stated “you do worry about the environment and it’s a lot of waste to send to landfill, so if they can recycle them, then that’d be brilliant.”
However there are critics opposing the scheme stating that Knowaste would not act as a solution to the UK’s landfill problem. Jon Rolls, spokesman of ‘Real Nappy Campaign’ said that the scheme would only address a small part of a growing problem; he continued in saying “We need to change our culture of using disposable products and shift to a more resource efficient society, that places greater emphasis on the waste hierarchy,”
Women’s Environment Network also contradict Knowaste’s proposal. They believe that natural nappies are the answer to the UK’s nappy problem as they are re-usable and cost effective.
With the average UK child using approximately 6,000 disposable nappies by aged 2 and a half Knowaste does have an opportunity to reduce the number of nappies being dumped in landfill sites and reduce the harm to the environment.
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