SHIBUSHI, KAGOSHIMA PREF. ¨C Billions of dirty diapers end up buried or burned every year in Japan ¡ª more from seniors than babies ¡ª but a recycling breakthrough has given them a new lease of life, one hot mess at a time.
A pilot project, billed as a world first, reuses the main ingredient in diapers to make new ones, offering hopes to ease bloated landfill sites and respond to a growing need for adult diapers in aging Japan.
¡°Demand for baby diapers is falling. But a growing number of elderly people wear diapers, and more recently, even pets do too,¡± said Takahisa Takahara, president of Japanese hygiene product maker Unicharm, the firm behind the new initiative.
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