In a first, Japan launches 'horizontally recycled' diapers. What is it?
Diaper
A Japanese hygiene products maker started selling the world's first "horizontally" recycled disposable baby diapers at shopping centres on Saturday (April 20), Japanese media reported.
The company, Unicharm Corp, worked on the concept of "horizontal recycling", which is a form of recycling where products at the end of their lifecycle are used as material in the creation of similar products.
Media reports mentioned that after collecting the diapers, the company ground and washed them first, and then the materials were separated.
In the next process, the company treatedthe clean materials with ozone to reduce bacteria and odour, after which they were made into diapers.
Kyodo News reported that the company has collaborated with two local governments in Kagoshima Prefecture for the recycling process.
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The firm started manufacturing recycled adult diapers in 2022. At first, such recycled diapers were provided to hospitals and care homes for the elderly.
"We would like to transform a resource-intensive standard to a cyclical one. We have received approval from experts concerning the hygiene" of the diapers, senior executive officer of Unicharm, Tsutomu Kido, said as quoted by Kyodo News.
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Japan's plummeting birth rate
Japan is currently struggling with the issue of a plummeting birth rate, which recently forced a diaper manufacturer to stop making them for babies. Instead, the company ramped up production for adults.
In March, Oji Holdings said that it would wrap up domestic output of infant diapers in September after a massive drop in production. In 2001, there was a peak of around 700 million annually, whichdropped to 400 million till last month.
"Demand for baby diapers is decreasing because of factors including the falling birth rate," a spokesman told the news agency AFP.
The number of births in Japan dropped to a new low in 2023, with more than twice as many deaths as new babies.
The births in 2023 fell for the eighth consecutive year to 758,631, a drop of 5.1 per cent, preliminary data showed in February. The number of deaths stood at 1,590,503.
(With inputs from agencies)