The two companies founded a joint venture, dubbed Fater, to commercialize a process to collect dirty diapers, purify them, then break them down into their components—namely cellulose, absorbing material, and mixed plastic.
A pilot project with waste management company Contarina is already collecting and processing dirty diapers from fifty Italian towns.
“Nappies are made of the highest quality plastics and we’ve shown they can be recycled to extract high-value building blocks,” Marcello Somma, Fater’s director of research and development and business development, tells Reuters.
P&G, a major producer of diapers, has set a goal to recycle all of its absorbent hygiene products in at least 10 cities by 2030.