by Brianna Crandall — September 20, 2013—Initial Hygiene (formerly Pink Hygiene), an Australian market leader in hygiene solutions and part of Rentokil Initial, is helping to change the waste landscape in Australia by backing a new absorbent hygiene waste (AHW) recycling technology from diaper (or “nappy”) and pad recycling experts Relivit. According to the companies, this major partnership is set to unlock a “hidden goldmine” in landfill worth approximately $120 million and will pioneer an entirely new sector for the Australian waste management industry, which one would hope could spread to other countries as well (see below).
Relivit’s Managing Director Mark Dunn said that Relivit’s AHW recycling technology is an Australian first and can divert 95 percent of the 450,000 metric tonnes of diapers, sanitary pads and incontinence pads that Australia produces away from landfill, more than halving the carbon footprint of AHW. By recycling these products, “which currently costs Australian businesses and councils approximately $60 million to bury in landfill each year, businesses and councils are able to reduce both the environmental and financial impact of this AHW significantly,” said Dunn.
The recycled plastics and wood fibers from AHW can be used to make products as diverse as:
- Fence posts
- Park benches, tables and chairs
- Flooring
- Wheel stops and speed humps
- Molded cardboard products and fine paper
- Pet bedding and pet litter
According to an article about the new partnership in Australasia’s cleaning and hygiene industry magazine INCLEAN, the way Relivit’s process works is: the absorbent hygiene waste (AHW) is collected from the source and transported to the facility; the AHW is shredded outside the autoclave; it is then sterilized and the super-absorbent polymer (SAP) is deactivated, allowing the organics to be removed; the plastics, wood fiber and SAP are separated; and the materials are sent off to manufacturers to be made into new materials.
Relivit’s first AHW plant will open in New South Wales (NSW) in 2014, and there are plans to expand Australia-wide over the next five years. Relivit will service businesses including hospitals, childcare centers, and senior care facilities as well as local councils, providing them with an environmentally sustainable and cost effective AHW recycling solution.
According to further FMLink research, the technology that Relivit is using comes from a company called Knowaste, which was founded in 1989 in Toronto but is only recently enjoying sustained commercial success, finding a match with municipalities in the United Kingdom. In 2011, Knowaste entered into a license agreement with Relivit, to whom it granted the exclusive rights to the Knowaste technology and know-how in Australia and New Zealand.
According to an article about Knowaste in Fast Co.Exist, Knowaste has previously built facilities in Canada, the Netherlands, and California. Although disposable diapers contribute 3.4 million tons of waste to landfill in the United States a year, the numbers did not work out for Knowaste in these countries due to “bountiful and cheap landfill space in the U.S., and high rates of incineration in Holland.”
The United Kingdom, however, has “one of the worst landfill problems in Europe,” with “relatively few landfill alternatives, and a hefty landfill tax that has quickly pushed up prices.” Ingeniously, Knowaste is using a portion of the nonrecyclable AHW content to produce electricity, selling some back to the U.K. grid, and using the rest in the AHW facility itself. Knowaste opened its first U.K. facility in 2011, and plans to invest to $39.6 million in five facilities across the country by 2015, eventually handling about a fifth of Britain’s AHW supply, which totals 1 million tons a year.
