SHIBUSHI (AFP) — Billions of dirty diapers end up buried or burned every year in Japan — more from seniors than babies — but a recycling breakthrough has given them a new lease of life, one hot mess at a time.

A pilot project, billed as a world first, reuses the main ingredient in nappies to make new ones, offering hopes to ease bloated landfill sites and respond to a growing need for adult diapers in aging Japan.

The collected diapers are shredded, washed and separated into pulp, plastic and super-absorbent polymer. The process follows a special ozone treatment for sterilization, bleaching and deodorization.

By 2028, Unicharm aims to recycle the plastic and absorbent polymer from soiled diapers to make new ones as well, Tsutomu Kido, senior executive officer of the company’s recycling business, told Agence France-Presse.