The roads are paved with nappies in Llanarth

What to do with disposable nappies? It is a huge environmental problem and not an easy one to solve, but in Wales they may have the answer, turn them into motorways, reports Karla Adam

The Conwy region of West Wales recycles more than 70 per cent of its household waste (Washington Post photo by Karla Adam)

No, it doesn't smell like poo.

We thought it'd be worth preempting the obvious question even before describing how, in what might be a world-first, more than 100,000 dirty, disposable nappies are being used to help pave a road in west Wales.

This is a pilot project with intriguing environmental implications. A proliferation of nappy motorways could reduce landfill waste – and influence parents around the globe weighing the vexingly difficult decision between cloth vs. disposables.

These particular nappies were rinsed – thoroughly, don't worry. Then shredded into fibrous grey pellets and mixed with asphalt that a work crew clad in bright orange slathered over a 1.5-mile stretch of winding motorway this week.

“You're not sure what to expect when you turn up to a nappy road,” says Ben Lake, the local MP. But, taking a deep breath as he strolled alongside the freshly paved, still glistening road, he pronounces: “It smells like – road.”

Lake says the nappy road “could be a game-changer for how we approach infrastructure in Wales”, and while people could still be encouraged to shift to cloth nappies, this nonetheless helped to tackle the “here and now” problem of a mountain of disposables thrown away every year.

About 140 million disposable nappies are tossed in the bin annually in Wales. In Britain as a whole, that number is estimated at 3 billion, accounting for 2 to 3 per cent of all household waste. The majority of those end up in landfill, where even the ones billed as biodegradable can take years to break down.

Cloth nappies have environmental costs, too. Making them and washing them consumes energy and water. A report by the Environment Agency in 2008 found that environmental impacts of using cloth nappies could be higher or lower than using disposables, depending on how they are laundered.

Pryor says he recycles about 40 million disposable nappies a year and has used the fibrous pellets to make construction panels, pin-up boards and coasters

Efficient washers have shifted the equation in favour of cloth. But nappy motorways could change some people's thinking once again.

Jason Hallett, a professor of sustainable chemical technology at Imperial College London, says paving with recycled nappies wouldn't “make the roads greener”, since both asphalt and plastic nappies are made of hydrocarbons. But a nappy motorway “arguably gives more options for end-of-life uses for plastic in nappies, therefore it makes those products less environmentally damaging”.

Several countries have experimented with roads made with plastic garbage. India led the way – glue made from shredded plastic waste has been holding together a street in Chennai since 2002, and since 2015 the Indian government has required road construction in populous urban areas to incorporate plastic waste. The Netherlands, a country of keen cyclists, opened the world's first bicycle path made with recycled plastic. And the US state of California used discarded plastic bottles and other packaging to repave a three-lane stretch of motorway.

But Wales believes its road is the first made from nappies.

NappiCycle, a Wales-based company that supplied the pellets for the trial, is one of only two nappy recycling companies in the world. (The other is in Italy.)

Director Rob Poyer says nappies are difficult to break it down into plastic, cellulose and super absorbent polymer parts. But perhaps the biggest challenge for potential recyclers has been finding a market for the output left behind. Pryor says he recycles about 40 million disposable nappies a year and has used the fibrous pellets to make construction panels, pin-up boards and coasters.

NappiCycle director Rob Poyer, left, with Plaid Cymru MP Ben Lake (Washington Post photo by Karla Adam)

“We have to be innovative and broaden our mind into what we do with the end uses of our materials,” he says, as he nodded toward a truck loaded with hot asphalt mixed with nappy pellets. “We are too quick to disregard things and put them in the bin.”

Some areas in Wales ask households using disposable nappies to set them out in a separate bin for collection each week. It's still cheaper for local authorities to take the nappies to an incinerator or landfill than to send them to Pryor's plant, he says. But some still do. Nappy recycling is “viable because the Welsh government wants a green economy,” Pryor says.

Wales has been more creative than most with its recycling policies. And along with Germany and Taiwan, it is among the top recyclers in the world.

Analysts say what really drove up rates were statutory recycling targets, and a threat of hefty fines if they aren't met. Local authorities have flexibility on how to meet those targets. In Swansea, for instance, officials carry out what they call “clink tests” – they go around shaking trash bags to see if there are any clinks or clanks, identifying recyclable objects. Culprits have to pay £100.

Other Welsh towns have slashed the frequency of refuse collections, while maintaining weekly recycling and food waste collection. The first place to introduce once-a-month rubbish collection – and not without howls of protest – was Conwy in north Wales. Since that move in 2018, Conwy's food waste collection is up 31 percent and the recycling of dry materials is up 16 percent. The region recycles more than 70 percent of household waste.

Jim Espley, a waste manager at the Conwy county council, says initially people were worried about “smelly bins and maggots”. But he insisted that it's manageable, as long as people keep organic material – like food and nappies – out of their bins.

Food waste typically makes up about a quarter of household garbage. But most Welsh residents plop their food waste into a caddie, which is collected weekly and taken to an “anaerobic digestion” facility, where it is turned into renewable energy or used as fertiliser.

The nappy pellets being used to make Wales’ road surfaces (Washington Post photo by Karla Adam)

Attention has now turned to what to do with nappies and other absorbent hygiene products, which make up about 9 per cent of refuse.

If Welsh authorities end up happy with the nappy motorway experiment – if they determine the asphalt isn't compromised by the addition of nappy fibres and meets environmental standards – there is scope for the recycled nappies to be used more widely. Wales has more than 34,000 miles of roads.

This week, government testers parked a white van alongside the nappy road and took samples to be analysed.

In the case of other plastic roads, there has been some worry about the possibility of microplastics getting into the soil and waterways. But Hallett played down that concern, saying nappies would probably leak more microplastics when thrown into landfills.

Locals in Llanthan seemed amused that the world's first nappy road was on their doorstep.

“That's one way to get rid of it,” says Luke Steer, 25, who was oblivious – until informed by this reporter – that he'd just driven over pavement made from recycled nappies. Steer says his toddler wears disposable nappies.

“It doesn't bother me, as long as it does the job,” says Sam Vaux, 30, who runs an auto repair garage next to the nappy road. “Apart from the rumours flying around that the road is made out of recycled nappies, apart from that, you wouldn't know any difference.”

© The Washington Post