As every proud new mom or dad (or older brother or sister) knows, a new baby means lots of diapers – 15 to 18 every day! The television is full of ads promising longer protection for grandma’s antique sofa, a new form fit without "the bunchies", and even color coded diaper: pink for girls and blue for boys.

Think about what happens to those pretty designer diapers once they leave the curbsides of suburbia. Diapers by volume constitute 2% of all garbage from residential areas with the average baby using ten disposable diapers a day for two years. This amounts to a small hill of diapers and a lot of garbage – one metric ton per child.

Some facts you may not know are:

• Disposable diapers may take up to 500 years to decompose, essentially making them present in our landfills forever.
• Approximately a quarter of a million trees, equivalent to 1.3 million tons of wood pulp, are required annually to meet U.S. disposable diaper demands alone.
• The number of people age 65 and older more than tripled over the past half-century to a record 420 million worldwide, leaving more and more elderly people dependent on disposable diapers or other incontinence products.
• The EPA estimates that 3.3 million tons of disposable diapers were sent to U.S. landfills in 2000, which is equivalent to more than 20 billion actual diapers.
• Disposable diapers, containing untreated human waste, present significant environmental and public health concerns in landfills, potentially contaminating precious groundwater resources.

Meet Knowaste, a private company which has patented technologies for the recycling of absorbent hygiene products. Their process sanitizes the diaper material and mechanically separates the individual components so the wood pulp and plastic can be recycled. Up to 98% of a used disposable diaper or incontinence product can be removed from the waste stream.

The recycled wood pulp can be used in many different applications, including wallpaper, shoe insoles and oil filters.
The recycled plastic can be used in the production of plastic wood, roof shingles and vinyl wood siding. Knowaste has proven that a viable and profitable market exists for the recycled end products.

Using Knowaste process, Smallplanet is the only company in the world that offers convenient residential pick-up of disposable baby diapers for recycling . For all their clients, Smallplanet will provide an outdoor, weather-proof storage container for your baby's used diapers. A driver will pick-up the diapers bi-weekly on a scheduled service day. There is a one time Administration Fee of $25.00. Visit their website for more details about this service.