In what might be a world-first, more than 100,000 dirty, disposable diapers are being used to help pave a road in west Wales. This is a pilot project with intriguing environmental implications. A proliferation of diaper highways could reduce landfill waste 鈥� and influence parents around the globe weighing the vexingly difficult decision between cloth vs. disposables.
These particular diapers were rinsed 鈥� thoroughly, don鈥檛 worry. Then shredded into fibrous gray pellets and mixed with asphalt that a work crew clad in bright orange slathered over a 1.5-mile stretch of winding highway this week. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e not sure what to expect when you turn up to a nappy road,鈥� said Ben Lake, a politician who represents this area in Britain鈥檚 Parliament. But, taking a deep breath as he strolled alongside the freshly paved, still glistening road, he pronounced: 鈥淚t smells like 鈥� road.鈥�
Lake said the nappy road 鈥渃ould be a game-changer for how we approach infrastructure in Wales,鈥� and while people could still be encouraged to shift to cloth diapers, this nonetheless helped to tackle the 鈥渉ere and now鈥� problem of a mountain of disposables thrown away every year.