AWARD YEAR
2019
CATEGORY
Work
GOALS
Responsible Consumption & Production
KEYWORDS
used diaper recycling, circular economics, stratified fluff-fiber
COUNTRY
Taiwan
DESIGNED BY
Sz-Chwun John Hwang, Wei-Chieh Liu, Bei-Ren Wu, Miley Tsai
Department of Industrial Design, Chung Hua University
WEBSITE
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r4Z1R_JKhMy7q8BSVStZeiH34XRYo5E6/view?usp=sharing
Sustainable Used Diaper Recycler
Natural Soaking Agents for Stratification with low energy used and recycle materials highly refined
The world has tremendous amount of non-biodegradable used diapers produced each year. In Taiwan, we have 24 incinerators, one of which was used to burn the diapers. If we can stratify the glue-like fiber/polyacrylate mixture, we can return the raw materials back to industry. It is excellent example of circular economics. How it works: In long-term care facilities, the collection at ward and processing device at utility room necessitates an ergonomic design, so the nurses can easily pull the collection bucket after diaper collection and push it into the laundry machine with the gull-wing opening. After appropriate disinfection, cleaning, spin-dry and drainage, the inside baskets are stacked outside in a pile for further shipment offsite. In the center, the used diapers are first shredded, and then soak with natural ingredients which are added to stratify the salts and fiber mixture into different layers. The separated PE/PP, fiber and salts can be reused to produce up-cycled products.