Turning waste into raw materials: Recycling diapers instead of burning them
The founding team at LaMa Recycling is carrying out an innovative research project at the SKZ Plastics Center to recycle previously unusable production waste from diaper manufacturing. Instead of being incinerated, cellulose, plastics, and superabsorbents can be separated, processed, and returned to the raw material cycle—a step that conserves resources and reduces CO₂ emissions.
The LaMa Recycling project team is conducting an innovative research project at SKZ to develop a novel recycling process as part of the “EXIST Research Transfer” funding program. (From left): Stefan Zuljevic, Dr. Lars Helmlinger, Dr. Marieluise Lang, and Thomas Wolz. (Photo: SKZ)
LaMa Recycling is researching a novel recycling process for plastic production waste at the SKZ
The founding team of LaMa Recycling—Dr. Marieluise Lang, Dr. Lars Helmlinger, and Thomas Wolz—is developing a novel recycling process to recover valuable raw materials from production waste generated during plastic processing. The goal of the research project is to develop an industrially viable process that returns previously non-recyclable production residues back into the raw material cycle.
The focus includes, among other things, polyolefin blends and plastic chips from industrial manufacturing, which have so far been entirely incinerated. As a result, the materials they contain are irretrievably lost and further burden the carbon footprint. The new technology is designed to process this waste and make the contained raw materials available again—an important contribution to resource conservation and the reduction of emissions. A particular focus is on production waste from diaper manufacturing.
“Around six billion diapers for children and adults are produced in Germany each year. About three percent of these, roughly 15,000 tons, are production waste that has previously been entirely incinerated,” explains Dr. Marieluise Lang. “This results in the loss of valuable raw materials, while at the same time, thermal recycling significantly impacts the carbon footprint.”
Superabsorbents as a Recycling Obstacle
A major obstacle to the recycling of diaper production waste is so-called superabsorbents—highly absorbent polymers that enable diapers to absorb liquids. Their chemical properties have made recycling them costly or economically unviable until now.
Scalable Recycling Process
Since September 2025, the interdisciplinary team at LaMa Recycling Technologies has been working at full strength. In the current project phase, the work focuses on the technical scaling of the process. The goal is to establish a stable and scalable recycling process with a processing capacity of at least 500 kilograms per hour by the end of the project—an important step toward the industrial application of the technology.
The project is being implemented at SKZ, as the institute draws on many years of experience in plastics research and provides state-of-the-art laboratories for the development of innovative recycling technologies. SKZ is also supporting the spin-off of LaMa Recycling and assisting the team in translating research results into practical applications.
