International services company OCS has unveiled plans to bring commercial-scale disposable nappy composting to the UK for the first time with the aim of opening several facilities by the end of 2012.
The company, which has UK offices in Sanderstead in Surrey, is proposing to use a technique pioneered in New Zealand in the plants, which it expects to each have a capacity of around 1,000 tonnes-a-year.
Currently, around 600,000 tonnes-a-year of waste disposable nappies and other absorbent hygiene products (AHP), such as incontinence pads and feminine hygiene products, is generated in the UK. Of this, the vast majority goes to landfill.
To target this material, OCS has acquired Envirocomp, which runs a full-scale commercial disposable nappy recycling facility in North Canterbury.
The companys process uses in-vessel composting technology patented by New Zealand-based organics recycling specialists HotRot. It involves nappies and other AHPs being shredded before being composted with green waste over a 14 to 16 day period. It then separates off and removes the plastic.
According to OCS, the compost produced by the process is free of pathogens and suitable for horticultural and non-food agricultural purposes.
Breakthrough
Commenting on the companys UK plans, OCS regional managing director for Europe, Cecil Ryan, said: This is a real breakthrough and a first for the UK. Composting marks a step-change in the disposal of nappy waste and were delighted to be bringing this environmentally-friendly solution to this country.
OCS announcement comes as Canadian company Knowaste prepares to officially open what will be the UKs first nappy recycling plant in Birmingham this summer (see letsrecycle.com story).
The Knowaste plant will use a mixture of autoclaving and mechanical separation to treat up to 36,000 tonnes of nappies and AHP a year.
A spokesman for OCS stressed that, with hundreds of thousands of tonnes of the waste stream being generated each year, the facilities it plans to open would not be competing with Knowaste for material.
He told letsrecycle.com: We feel and Knowaste feel, from our discussions with them that its going to help both of by demonstrating more momentum for diverting nappies from landfill.
Locations
The spokesman said that UK locations for the OCS facilities were yet to be confirmed, but noted that the company hoped to be a position to reveal the location for the first facility by the end of this year.
He revealed that OCS was currently in discussions with the operators of existing waste facilities that treat sewage sludge with a view to co-locating IVC for nappies on their sites. This, he explained, could have benefits in securing licensing approval.
And, he claimed that once the first site was up and running, the company aimed to bring more on-line as soon as possible. He said: Once the first one is open and we can demonstrate it meets regulatory requirements we hope to open several plants in the first year.
Initial feedstock for the first UK plants will come by Envirocomp working with another subsidiary of OCS, hygiene services company Cannon Hygiene, which currently collects waste AHP from commercial products and then has to send them to landfill. Mr Ryan said: We have enormous volumes from that source alone.
In New Zealand, Envirocomps services including paid-for collections of nappies from domestic properties. In the UK it has said this is not its initial focus, noting that it can expensive, but Mr Ryan added: It is something we will also be looking at.
Funding
Funding for the plants will come from OCS, but the spokesman said the company was in talks with another, unnamed, funding partner.
Were in talks with a major commercial sponsor, its not a waste company – its a manufacturer of AHP. They get brand improvement because nappies and AHP do suffer to some extent from the fact that they can go to landfill.
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