Pyrolysis company BlueAlp, polymer producer Borouge International and diaper [nappies] brand Woosh have collaborated to manufacture new diapers from used diaper waste via chemical recycling.
Used diapers are collected and pre-treated by Woosh, before the plastic fraction is converted into pyrolysis oil by BlueAlp at its facility in Ostend, Belgium, and sent to Borouge International to manufacture circular plastics for applications including new diapers.
The waste feedstock is made up of Woosh "give-back" diapers, which are designed for ease of recycling. Woosh supplies the diapers to households and childcare facilities and collects them again after use, before separating out the plastic fractions at its sorting plant in Bruges, Belgium and delivering it to BlueAlp. The Woosh sorting plant was launched in 2025 and can process "thousands of tonnes per year". Woosh currently collects diapers in Belgium and plans to expand into France and the Netherlands.
The plastic fraction from used diapers is mainly polypropylene (PP), BlueAlp chief executive Valentijn De Neve told Argus. It is unsuitable for traditional mechanical recycling owing to the presence of highly absorbent additives, but a pyrolysis facility can break these down and process the material normally into pyrolysis oil.
So far, a couple of hundred tonnes of feedstock from diapers have been processed in the Ostend facility, De Neve said. Based on the size of the diaper market, he anticipates that in the future up to 10pc of the feedstock for one of the firm's plants could come from diaper waste. The Ostend plant and BlueAlp's two confirmed future projects in the Netherlands and Italy have input capacity of around 20,000 t/yr.
The companies are targeting disposable diapers because they are currently "one of the clearest examples of the linear economy", being "typically used once and sent to incineration or landfill with no material recovery" they said.
