A Canadian company, Knowaste, plans to develop a total of five nappy recycling plants across the UK over the next four years.
The facility at West Bromwich in the West Midlands promises to process a number of personal hygiene products and recover materials, which can be used to make plastic components such as roof tiles and commercial tubes.
“This first site in West Bromwich represents the beginning of a 25 million pound overall investment in the UK,” Sky News quoted the firm’s chief executive officer Roy Browne as saying.
“It will produce capacity for handling about a fifth of the absorbent hygiene products waste stream, equating to a saving of 110,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions every year,” he said.
Commercial waste operators will deliver to the site from hospitals, nursing facilities and childcare nurseries.
But they also intend to target the domestic market as the process of turning the plastic elements of sanitary waste into building products continues to be developed.
Browne maintains that the West Bromwich plant will be able to recycle approximately 36,000 tonnes of nappies and other absorbent hygiene products, including bed liners and incontinence aids.