Rhondda Cynon Taf Council is celebrating its 10th anniversary of nappy recycling this year and it’s been confirmed that the Council has been recycling nappies for longer than any other Local Authority in the World!!!
Pura. NappiCycle who have been world leaders in nappy recycling since 2014 has said that residents of Rhondda Cynon Taf have been recycling their nappies and incontinence pads longer than any other County Borough in the world. With around 82M nappies being recycled in the last 10 years – that’s 8.2M nappies every year being recycled instead of rotting in landfill.
NappiCycle is now the longest and only known active Absorbent Hygiene Product recycling plant in the world and can confirm that the Council has been with them from the very start – together the Council and NappiCycle have been able to work on finding a recycling solution from what was previously seen as a solid waste disposal issue.
Fun nappy facts for RCT: 683,300 nappies are collected every month, 170,800 per week, that’s 17 nappies/AHP a week for each household – based on circa 10,000 registered households.
You can see just how items are recycled and turned in to plastic pellets to be turned in to panel boards and lots more in the video below:
It is estimated that there are around 40,000 tonnes of Absorbent Hygiene Products (AHP), which include disposable nappies and incontinence products in the waste stream in Wales. This equates to a staggering 200 million nappies a year in Wales and over half a million a day.
Disposable nappies are made of plastics, elastics, adhesives, paper pulp, and chemicals which do not readily degrade and could also leak toxins into the ground. In fact, it’s estimated that it could take hundreds of years (some guess at more than 500 years) before nappies begin to break down.
In addition to this, the soiling in them means that as they rot, methane - a greenhouse gas about twice as bad as Carbon Dioxide, is released contributing to global warming. In fact, the number of disposable nappies used in a child’s life accounts for as much as 630kg of methane – which is as much as a car would use over 1800 miles.
It’s been calculated that if the 3bn nappies used each year in the UK were 100% recycled, it would be the same as removing 72,000 cars from our roads annually. Wow.
Luckily for Rhondda Cynon Taf residents the FREE, kerbside collection service has been available for over a decade and is rated as one of the best services across the UK waste industry. The purple bag scheme currently allows residents to recycle used disposable nappies and incontinence pads from the kerbside every week. All residents need to do is register online at www.rctcbc.gov.uk/NappyRecycling. Once their registration is confirmed they will receive a roll of purple bags and be told when their collection day will be (this may not be the same day as your other recycling), then they simply put it at the kerbside before 7am on that day.
To improve the service on offer across the County Borough the Council has been looking at the efficiency and effectiveness of the collection rounds. This review is now complete and registered customers are now set to experience an improved service from week commencing Monday 19th February. All registered residents should have received a personalised letter confirming or updating their collection day – residents are advised to check this before 19th February. Registered residents will also be able to check their collection days online at www.rctcbc.gov.uk/Bindays.
Councillor Ann Crimmings, Cabinet Member for Environment and Leisure, said:
“The nappy and incontinence recycling service has been incredibly popular across the County Borough and as a Council we were hailed a trail blazer when we first introduced the service over TEN years ago. It is estimated that we have managed to recycle around 82Million nappies in RCT over the last decade. The innovative scheme sees the waste product collected and re-produced in Wales by NappiCycle into construction panel boards.
“The team have now looked at the current data and have ensured that registered customers still need the service and used this information in combination with the latest in-cab technology to improve collection routes and allow for an automated service.”
For more information or to sign up to nappy and incontinence waste recycling please visit www.rctcbc.gov.uk/nappyrecycling.
To check your recycling and or bin collection day visit www.rctcbc.gov.uk/BinDay
Posted on 19/02/2024