Overview
In the "Strampolino" children’s day care centre, 500 nappies are used per day, all of which end up in the waste. That makes 10,000 nappies per month, which are no longer available as a new resource because they are incinerated. In 2022, the volume of nappies in Switzerland as a whole was 16.06 million kilos.
The Strampolino children's day care centre wants to turn nappies into a recyclable material and bring them into a biological cycle. On the one hand, a suitable collection and composting service is being set up. On the other hand, a product must be developed that is fully biodegradable. The aim of this Innocheck is to clarify which materials of a nappy can be replaced in which way in order to make it biodegradable and thus bring it into a biological cycle.
In a first step, this cycle is to be established in the day-care centre ecosystem via an already functioning collection and composting service of composting toilets.
Up to now, disposable nappies have been disposed of in household waste. Products with partly already recyclable components (fleeces, cellulose) are irretrievably lost with the synthetic components. This is to be counteracted with the circular economy approach: Petroleum-based raw materials are to be replaced and faeces and urine are to be recovered as valuable fertiliser.
There are now a wide variety of nappy concepts on the market that are working towards a more ecological solution at the material and recycling level. However, a fully biodegradable disposable nappy is still missing.
In this Innoscheck, the materials and their functions are examined and substitute materials and processing options are sought that do not impair the suitability of the nappy, but which are recyclable, i.e. compostable.
According to Strampolino's own survey, many consumers would like a practical and ecological solution for nappies. The aim of this Innocheck is to find solutions for a product that offers a valid alternative and, together with the user-centred collection service, can thus establish itself on the market.
The aim is to find a sustainable solution to this waste problem and position it as a beacon project in the industry. If successful, this network can be used to further scale the product and service.
