The Washington Post - USA (2022-02-20)

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 20 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A21

The World

IRAN

Nuclear talks at key

point, Scholz warns

Efforts to revive Iran’s nuclear
agreement are still bogged down
over disagreements despite high-
level diplomacy, with German
Chancellor Olaf Scholz warning
that it’s now or never to save the
accord.
“Now is the moment of truth,”
Scholz said Saturday at the
Munich Security Conference,
which was attended by many
world leaders and high-level
diplomats. “If we do not succeed
in this very soon, the
negotiations risk failing.”
Negotiations in Vienna to
rekindle the 2015 deal — which
traded sanctions relief for limits
on Iran’s nuclear work — are in
their 10th month, with

diplomats suggesting talks

should wrap up by the end of

February.

Iranian Foreign Minister

Hossein Amirabdollahian was

also in Munich, meeting with

European counterparts and

United Nations Secretary

General António Guterres. He

urged Western parties to the

negotiations to stop playing

“double games” over the text and

terms of a revived accord.

— Bloomberg News

DUBAI

‘Hostage’ princess

okay, U.N. confirms

Princess Latifa, the daughter

of Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh

Mohammed bin Rashid al-

Maktoum, who once claimed

that she was being held

“hostage” in the emirate, has told

a senior United Nations human

rights official that she is “well.”

Her case made global

headlines, and the U.N. was

among those to express concern

for her safety.

On Friday, the U.N. tweeted an

image showing Latifa standing

next to Michelle Bachelet, the

U.N. high commissioner for

human rights and former

president of Chile, after a private

meeting.

The U.N. human rights body

confirmed to The Washington

Post on Saturday that a meeting

had occurred between the two

women at the end of November

2021 in Paris, when Bachelet was

en route to Burkina Faso and

Niger for official visits.

— Adela Suliman

Cleanup crews tackle Storm

Eunice damage: Crews cleared

fallen trees and worked to

restore power to about 400,000

people in Britain as Western

Europe cleaned up Saturday

after one of the most damaging

storms in years. At least 12

people were killed, many by

falling trees, in Ireland, Britain,

Belgium, the Netherlands and

Germany. Named Storm Eunice

by the British and Irish weather

services, and Storm Zeynep in

Germany, Friday’s storm

recorded a gust of 122 mph on

the Isle of Wight. If confirmed, it

would be the highest ever in

England.

Bosnian nationalists threaten

to form own region: Bosnian

Croat nationalists say they could

launch a political process to form

their own region in Bosnia

unless an election law is changed

in a way that bolsters their

representation in national

institutions. A possible Croat

boycott of the presidential and

parliamentary vote would

further deepen the c ountry’s

worst political crisis since the

end of the Balkan wars of the

1990s: Bosnian Serbs have been

challenging state institutions as

part of their longtime bid to

secede and j oin Serbia.

12 people remain missing in

Greek ferry fire: Rescue teams

in Greece searched for 12 people

believed to be missing after a

ferry caught fire in the Ionian

Sea while en route to Italy. After

working all night to try to

extinguish the blaze that broke

out Friday, firefighting vessels

surrounded the Euroferry

Olympia, which was carrying

more than 290 passengers and

crew. The Greek coast guard and

other boats evacuated about 280

of them to Corfu. A coast guard

spokeswoman on Saturday said

none of the 12 missing people

had been found.

Al-Shabab claims deadly attack

in central Somalia: At least 13

people died after a suicide

bomber blew up a restaurant in

the central Somali town of

Beledweyne. Another 18 people

were injured in the attack, the

Somali National Television said

on Twitter. The al-Shabab

militant group claimed

responsibility for the attack.

Witnesses said the restaurant

was packed with local officials

and politicians at the time of the

attack, and one of those killed

was a parliamentary candidate.

— From news services

DIGEST

BY KARLA ADAM

llanarth, wales — No, it
doesn’t smell like poop.
We thought it’d be worth pre-
empting the obvious question
even before describing how, in
what might be a world-first, more
than 100,000 dirty, disposable di-
apers — or “nappies,” as they are
called here — are being used to
help pave a road in west Wales.
This is a pilot project with
intriguing environmental impli-
cations. A proliferation of diaper
highways could reduce landfill
waste — and influence parents
around the globe weighing the
vexingly difficult decision be-
tween cloth vs. disposables.
These particular diapers were
rinsed — thoroughly, don’t 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.
“You’re not sure what to expect
when you turn up to a nappy
road,” said Ben Lake, a politician
who represents this area in Brit-
ain’s Parliament. But, taking a
deep breath as he strolled along-
side the freshly paved, still glis-
tening road, he pronounced: “It
smells like — road.”
Lake said the nappy road
“could be a game-changer for how
we approach infrastructure in
Wales,” and while people could
still be encouraged to shift to
cloth diapers, this nonetheless
helped to tackle the “here and
now” problem of a mountain of
disposables thrown away every
year.
About 140 million disposable
diapers are tossed in the bin
annually in Wales. In Britain as a
whole, that number is estimated
at 3 billion, accounting for 2 to 3
percent of all household waste. In
the United States, about 50 mil-
lion diapers are being stuffed into
Diaper Genies and the like each
day, for a total of more than 18
billion a year. The majority of
those end up in landfills, where
even the ones billed as biodegrad-
able can take years to break down.
Cloth diapers have environ-
mental costs, too. Making them
and washing them consumes en-
ergy and water. A report by Brit-
ain’s Environment Agency regula-
tor in 2008 found that environ-
mental impacts of using cloth
nappies could be higher or lower
than using disposables, depend-
ing on how they are laundered.
Efficient washers have shifted
the equation in favor of cloth. But
diaper highways could change
some people’s thinking once
again.
Jason Hallett, a professor of
sustainable chemical technology
at Imperial College London, said
paving with recycled nappies
wouldn’t “make the roads green-
er,” since both asphalt and plastic
diapers are made of hydrocar-
bons. But a diaper highway “argu-
ably gives more options for end-
of-life uses for plastic in nappies,
therefore it makes those products
less environmentally damaging.”
Several countries have experi-
mented with roads made with
plastic garbage. India led the way
— glue made from shredded plas-
tic waste has been holding togeth-
er a street in Chennai since 2002,
and since 2015 the Indian govern-
ment has required road construc-
tion in populous urban areas to
incorporate plastic waste. The
Netherlands, a country of keen
cyclists, opened the world’s first
bicycle path made with recycled
plastic. And California used dis-
carded plastic bottles and other
packaging to repave a three-lane
stretch of highway.
But Wales believes its road is
the first made from diapers.
NappiCycle, a Welsh company
that supplied the pellets for the
trial, is one of only two diaper
recycling companies in the world.
(The other is in Italy.)

Director Rob Poyer said dia-

pers are difficult to break it down

into plastic, cellulose and super

absorbent polymer parts. But per-

haps the biggest challenge for

potential recyclers has been find-

ing a market for the output left

behind. Poyer said recycles about

40 million disposable nappies a

year and has used the fibrous

pellets to make construction pan-

els, pinup boards and coasters.

“We have to be innovative and

broaden our mind into what we

do with the end uses of our ma-

terials,” he said, as he nodded

toward a dump truck loaded with

hot asphalt mixed with diaper

pellets. “We are too quick to disre-

gard things and put them in the

bin.”

Some areas in Wales ask house-

holds using disposable diapers to

set them out in a separate bin for

collection each week. It’s still

cheaper for local authorities to

take the diapers to an incinerator

or landfill than to send them to

Poyer’s plant, he said. But some

still do. Nappy recycling is “viable

because the Welsh government

wants a green economy,” Poyer

said.

Wales — a semiautonomous

nation of 3 million people — has

been more creative than most

with its recycling policies. And

along with Germany and Taiwan,

it is among the top recyclers in the

world.

Analysts say what really drove

up rates were statutory recycling

targets, and a threat of hefty fines

if they aren’t met. Local authori-

ties have flexibility on how to

meet those targets. In Swansea,

for instance, officials carry out

what they call “clink tests” — they

go around shaking trash bags to

see if there are any clinks or

clanks, identifying recyclable ob-

jects. Culprits have to pay 100

pounds, or nearly $140.

Other Welsh towns have

slashed the frequency of trash

pickups, while maintaining

weekly recycling and food waste

collection. The first place to intro-

duce once-a-month rubbish col-

lection — and not without howls

of protest — was Conwy, a region

in the north with a striking

medieval castle. Since that move

in 2018, Conwy’s food waste col-

lection is up 31 percent and the

recycling of dry materials is up 16

percent. The region recycles more

than 70 percent of household

waste.

Jim Espley, a waste manager at

the Conwy county council, said

initially people were worried

about “smelly bins and maggots.”

But he insisted that it’s manage-

able, as long as people keep or-

ganic material — like food and

nappies — out of their bins.

Food waste typically makes up

about a quarter of household gar-

bage. But most Welsh residents

plop their food waste into a cad-

die, which is collected weekly and

taken to an “anaerobic digestion”

facility, where it is turned into

renewable energy or used as fer-

tilizer.

Attention has now turned to

what to do with nappies and

other absorbent hygiene prod-

ucts, which make up about 9

percent of trash.

If Wales authorities end up

happy with the diaper highway

experiment — if they determine

the asphalt isn’t compromised by

the addition of nappy fibers and

meets environmental standards

— there is scope for the recycled

diapers to be used more widely.

Mountainous Wales has more

than 34,000 miles of roads.

This week, government testers

parked a white van alongside the

nappy road and took samples to

be analyzed.

In the case of other plastic

roads, there has been some worry

about the possibility of mi-

croplastics getting into the soil

and waterways. But Hallett

played down that concern, saying

diapers would likely leak more

microplastics when thrown into

landfills.

Locals in Llanarth seemed

amused that the world’s first nap-

py road was on their doorstep.

“That’s one way to get rid of it,”

said Luke Steer, 25, who was

oblivious — until informed by a

Washington Post reporter — that

he’d just driven over pavement

made from recycled diapers.

Steer said his toddler wears dis-

posable nappies.

“It doesn’t bother me, as long

as it does the job,” said Sam Vaux,

30, who runs an auto repair ga-

rage next to the nappy road.

“Apart from the rumors flying

around that the road is made out

of recycled nappies, apart from

that, you wouldn’t know any dif-

ference.”

Welsh highway paves a new path

in cloth vs. disposable diaper debate

The ‘nappy’ road, a possible world first, could reduce landfill waste and broaden end-of-life plastic uses

PHOTOS BY KARLA ADAM/THE WASHINGTON POST

A paving crew in Llanarth, Wales, slathers hot asphalt partly made from over 100,000 recycled disposable diapers on Feb. 15.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP:

NappiCycle Managing Director

Rob Poyer, left, and local

Parliament member Ben Lake

stand next to Wales’s first

nappy road. NappiCycle is one

of only two diaper recycling

companies in the world and

supplied the diaper pellets for

the road. Wales is one of the top

recycling nations in the world.

In Conway, Wales, over

70 percent of household waste

is recycled. The disposable

diapers were rinsed, shredded

into fibrous pellets and mixed

with asphalt.