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Dirty Diapers to Diesel Fuel

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diaper: Marco AriesenApparently, AMEC is building a plant to blast diapers into diesel fuel. They will be doing this through pyrolysis, which is also known as thermal cracking. The diapers will be heated up and broken down in a closed and oxygen free environment.

That’s a good thing because you wouldn’t want to let the fumes from thousands of diapers being heated to travel too far. Just a days worth of baby diapers is enough to knock you out. I remember saying to my husband, “That can’t be good for you.”

Big Diaper Supply for Fuel

There are plenty of dirty diapers to use in hospitals and they could contribute to the fuel conversion rather than sending the diapers to landfills. 30,000 tonnes of diapers will be initially converted, creating 11,000 tonnes of fuel and costing 50 cents a liter. (according to Canadian Press, Sidhartha Banerjee Mon Nov 19)

Cloth Diapers Versus Disposable

Using cloth diapers would keep more disposables out of landfills, but cloth diapers also require a lot of washing which uses plenty of energy and water. On the other hand, disposables can pollute the clean water that we have left. Cloth still seems the lesser of two evils for the environment, although not everyone has the luxury of a never-ending water supply. If there are no washing machines or Laundromats around, that also makes it challenging to use cloth diapers. The cloth/disposable diaper debate will continue, but it is good to know that some of them will be converted into fuel instead of heading to the dump.


Posted in Alternative Energy/Fuel, General, Recycle, Waste Management on November 20th, 2007

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2 Responses to “Dirty Diapers to Diesel Fuel”

  1. Diapers Articles » Blog Archive » Dirty Diapers to Diesel Fuel Says:
    November 22nd, 2007 at 6:37 am

    [...] Original post by Sandra Williams [...]

  2. jackie Says:
    March 7th, 2009 at 10:24 pm

    I like prince lol. However, there was once where he fell from a stage. Michael Jackson and James Brown was there too ;D


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