Turning dirty diapers into fuel
The diaper debate still looms large for new parents, causing much green guilt for those that use disposables. But how about if you could transform your baby's dirty disposables into a synthetic diesel fuel? AMEC, of Quebec, Canada, has been working to build a facility near Montreal that will use a process known a pyrolysis to convert diapers to diesel. The process will involve heating up the diapers up to 600C without air, breaking the carbon chains down into the fuels.
One of the challenges with this process that the input is can be so variable, particularly with regular trash. Not so with diapers which are "a very consistent input" according to an engineer on the project.
The initial plan is convert abut 30,000 tons of diapers, or about one-quarter of the diapers that end up in landfills in Quebec yearly.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
1-03-2008 @ 4:33PM
w said...
This is a fabulous idea. It's an inexhaustible fuel source, and parents would be ever so willing to get rid of the nasty things.
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1-03-2008 @ 4:33PM
NewEnglander said...
Talk about getting shitty fuel...
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1-03-2008 @ 5:08PM
Michael said...
Okay, you are being funny... if the idea works then it is worth it. We do need to find ways to convert what we can into fuel, or to find better ways to make cars more fuel efficient or even use other means to power them. Fact is, there are cars now that use friendlier fuels... we all need to quit "fueling" around and start changing our ways here on Planet Earth.
1-03-2008 @ 4:33PM
Mir Adil Ahsan said...
You sir, just made a hilarious comment...
Thank You...
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1-03-2008 @ 5:03PM
jane said...
Now to convert plastic containers, paper and cardboard to furniture!
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1-03-2008 @ 5:31PM
ron said...
already being done on a grand scale. The paper industry I am not so sure of...but plastics is recycling into furniture to the tune of 100's of millions of pounds.
1-03-2008 @ 5:25PM
ilikepie said...
u people need to stop talking about diapers, it's making me queezy.
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1-03-2008 @ 5:34PM
matt said...
now what kind of fuel and how much is used to heat those diapers up to 600c (1100f)?? and how clean does the diaper diesel burn? my guess is this is just a round about way that in the end uses more energy in sorting, trasporting, baking diapers, "packaging" in barrels or whatever the new fuel, then shipping it than you would get out of the diaper diesel end product, and a more than if you just let them go to the landfill. im sure modern diapers are plenty biodegradable.
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1-03-2008 @ 5:40PM
Girard said...
There are volitile gasses that are produced by the process of pyrolosis and those are burned to bring up the Diapers to that 600 degrees C.. If you want to know more about it, Google pyrolosis and get the whole picture. Check out back issues of Scientific American and look for an article in OMNI magazine entitled "Oil from Anything". Tyson is currently making Diesel fuel (cleaner than what you get from the pump) from chicken and turkey guts and feathers and feet etc..
1-03-2008 @ 6:18PM
Corinne Carey said...
I invented disposable diapers with breadwrappers pinned around my washable cloth diapers for the first of my 4 boys back in 1949....but somebody else patented it and is now rich.
Today Everyone is considering the inevitable: greening our lives for our great-great-grandkids' sustainable world! Hurray!!!
And for those who avoid dirty diaper talk or work, celebrate babies, our future!
....and keep opening our minds to keep their world a good place to live!
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1-03-2008 @ 6:20PM
ldsgurlz1617 said...
They can have mine. I've got a trash can full in the other room....whoever wants um come and get um!!!!!
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1-03-2008 @ 6:23PM
bonnie said...
um......
wont heating the diapers to 600 C burn a lot of fossil feul which will make it WORSE for the enviorment?
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1-03-2008 @ 7:03PM
Ruth Ferguson said...
I think its better than seeing them all over the united states littering the high way
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1-03-2008 @ 9:48PM
Cissy said...
Truer words never said.
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1-03-2008 @ 9:48PM
David said...
Wait a minute, no one has even mentioned the diapers used by the old and incontinent. With all the baby boomers getting older by the day, its another untapped resource.
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1-04-2008 @ 8:14AM
M Cann said...
I like your thinking
1-03-2008 @ 9:48PM
Hezakiah said...
Now if they could harness the hot air billowing out of Washington DC,the energy problem would be over
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1-03-2008 @ 9:50PM
Dianne said...
This idea sounds great. We shouldn't limit ourselves to baby diapers but we should be open to the idea of using the adult diapers, too
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1-03-2008 @ 9:52PM
melissa said...
it would be great to do something with plastic diapers, which the last time i checked are not biodegradable. however, when did diesel begin to burn clean? i've heard that its possible to turn a diesel engine into a vegetable oil clean burning engine, yet dieasel itself still pollutes. so, someone is working on a way to take diapers out of landfill and use them to pollute the air? i don't see the advantage.
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1-04-2008 @ 8:13AM
travelina said...
Brilliant!
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