Junk in Your Trunk: Changing Diapers to Diesel

Drivers are getting desperate.

With fuel prices still skyrocketing, a Canadian company is lending new meaning to the phrase “waste not, want not.” AMEC, a Quebec-based engineering and project management company spoke to the Canadian Press on the behalf of an unnamed client that plans to turn dirty diapers into diesel fuel.

The company would use a process called pyrolysis, also known as “thermal cracking,” to convert the diapers into fuel. This zero-emissions process entails heating the diapers in a sealed space at temperatures of up to 600C.

The Toronto Star reported that:

Strangely enough, diapers are ideal for such conversion, as they’re consistently made of the same material and are in abundant supply. Other types of municipal waste are too varied to use successfully. Most of the synthetic fuel made from diapers is slated for industrial use, but further research on pyrolysis may proffer technology that makes this synthetic fuel clean enough for cars. Will drivers someday use dirty diapers to fill up at the pumps? That depends.

Photos via flickr by taberandrew and ansegne.