The “Fertile Layers” are experimenting with the production of compost from used layers.

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The Alchemists

  • For several years, the Parisian start-up Les Alchimistes has been experimenting with the composting of baby diapers.

  • As part of a call for projects launched by the city, the young company has collected over the past year nearly 30,000 disposable protections in nurseries in the capital.

  • A new test phase will begin next November with the processing of fully compostable diaper prototypes.

75%.

It is the rate of organic matter contained in a traditional baby diaper after use - urine, feces, cellulose.

And it is this material that Les Alchimistes, a Parisian start-up, wants to promote to make the composting of diapers “obvious”.

Between October 2019 and July 2020, the company collected, as part of a call for projects launched by the early childhood department of the City of Paris and with the support of Ademe (Agence de l'environnement et energy management), some 28,000 used protections from five nurseries in the north-east of the capital.

That is to say “four tons of layers diverted from incineration,” underlines Maïwenn Mollet, project manager at Les Alchimistes.

"The layer is compostable waste if it is" eco-designed ""

The soiled diapers collected were sent to a site located in Ile Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), where the organic material was crushed and separated from the plastic, before being mixed with wood chippings and food waste. .

One of the main objectives of the experiment was to analyze the quality of the compost resulting from this maturation.

"The conclusions confirm that the layer is indeed compostable waste, but also that it must be" eco-designed "to produce good quality compost", continues Maïwenn Mollet.

An essay which leads Les Alchimistes to a new phase of experimentation.

This one, lasting 18 months, will focus on the treatment of diapers this time 100% compostable, designed with two manufacturers.

These are 100,000 protections per year will be collected.

“We will advise the two industrial partners on how to make their products compostable and on their compliance with European standards.

We will support them until they are put on the market ”, indicates the head of Alchemists.

Create a circular economy sector

More broadly, “the objective is to create a new circular economy sector that starts with waste and ends with a product.

The start-up could thus, in the long term, provide a service of collecting compostable layers from the municipalities, then sell the compost thus produced.

If the professionals are for the moment the main target of the Alchemists, the person in charge of the project estimates that it will be necessary to go to the homes, which represent the bulk of the consumption of diapers.

In total, the start-up estimates that in France, 3.5 billion baby diapers are bought and thrown away each year.

“We have a lot of ideas to experiment with.

For example, we can imagine terminals where everyone would drop off their used diapers, or collection at home.

“For now, we will have to demonstrate the quality of this compost for the soil, and wait for the regulations to allow it to be marketed.

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