GOOD NEWS: Researchers built the first known house made of concrete containing shredded diapers.
The research team found that the shredded diapers could replace between 9%-40% of the sand used in making concrete, providing a way of using non-recyclable diapers while making concrete production more eco-friendly.
- The researchers, based at the University of Kitakyushu in Japan, built the small nappy-based house in Indonesia.
- They found that a greater proportion of shredded diapers in the concrete translated to lower compressive strength, meaning that larger buildings would require a lower percentage of shredded diapers in the concrete.
- Siswanti Zuraida, one of the researchers who designed the project, said that diaper-based concrete could be valuable in Indonesia and other countries with growing populations.
- More babies mean more diapers, and diaper-based concrete could be used to help meet the growing demand for housing more sustainably.
- Cement production accounts for nearly 7% of global greenhouse-gas emissions.
- It also consumes ~50 billion tons of sand annually.