No need to throw the dirty diapers out with the bathwater! Santa Clarita, Calif., a suburb of Los Angeles, is the first municipality in the United States to institute a diaper-recycling program, which will transform the soiled, disposable sacks of goodies into oil filters, roof shingles, and vinyl siding. Some 20 billion diapers are buried in U.S. landfills per year, representing about 7 billion pounds of garbage. Santa Clarita’s $500,000 program may set an example for other California cities, which were required by a state law to cut in half the amount of garbage being sent to landfills by 2000. Many cities have yet to meet that target.
