Where there’s a will there’s a way!
G8 Education partnership delivers Australia’s first ever nappy recycling scheme.
BY BONNIE LAXTON-BLINKHORN, KINDICARE
The environmental footprint of single-use nappies is staggering; around 3.75 million disposable nappies are used daily in Australia and New Zealand and each one takes around 150 years to break down.
While awareness about the environmental burden of disposable nappies is growing, they are still the go-to for most families and early learning services. Now, in some good news for guilty parents, Australia’s first ever nappy recycling trial is seeing some great results at an early learning centre in South Australia.
G8 Education’s Welly Road Early Learning Centre is the epicentre of the trial, which is being conducted in partnership with Kimberly-Clark.
If successful, this experiment could be Australia’s answer to preventing 1.5 billion disposable nappies ending up in landfill each year.
The Nappy Loop trial has been underway in South Australia since July 2022 and uses anaerobic digestion to turn the organic materials in used Huggies nappies into nutrient-rich compost, as well as bioenergy that is captured and used to power the recycling process.
During anaerobic digestion, the organic material in the used nappies is transformed into compost while the plastic components are separated and evaluated for future recycled products.
In addition to Welly Road Early Learning Centre and Kimberly-Clark, Australia’s national science agency the CSIRO and Peats Soils and Garden Supplies and Solo Resource Recovery are involved in the trial, which has seen around two tonnes of used Huggies nappies collected and recycled from the Welly Road centre since July.
G8 Education’s Head of Early Learning and Education said the company is proud to be partnering in the trial and to be part of the solution rather than the problem.
“Through this partnership the nappies changed every day at our Welly Road centre are recycled instead of going into landfill.
“As educators of our future generations, sustainability is a core focus in all our 440 centres across Australia and we’re excited to contribute to this partnership and the positive environmental impact it can make,” said Ms Evans.
Welly Road’s Centre Manager Kristy Wheeler agreed with Ms Evans
“We are very passionate about changing things locally, to make a global impact at Welly Road, so we were privileged to have a chance to contribute to such a significant project like The Nappy Loop,” she said.
The next stage in the trial will see CSIRO and Kimberly-Clark working together to validate the results of the pilot as an effective strategy for tackling waste.
“Our research for this Australian trial will help inform the team on the potential scaling of the program to help reduce the number of nappies ending up in landfill,” said CSIRO’s Principal Research Scientist Dr Anu Kumar.
While there’s a way to go before nappy recycling is available nationally, this is an exciting first step for parents and early learning centres, keen to reduce their environmental footprint.
Watch this space…we certainly will be!
