June 24, 2009

Holey Crap! How Do You Clean Up Saturated Diaper Crystals?

Oh no she di'int? Oh yes, she did.

K2 just came charging out of her room waving her unfurled, supersoaked overnight diaper. The fabric had split, and so left a wide trail of pee-saturated diaper tapioca in her wake. It's on every possible flooring surface we have: carpet, hardwood, sheepskin, dimpled foam alphabet tile...

And it's not coming up. How are you supposed to clean up sodium polyacrylate? Paper towels didn't work. I'm only getting like one wipe per diaper wipe. Can I vacuum this stuff? Do I need a wet vac? Given its superabsorbent properties, I don't imagine it's one of those things like tobiko or steamed rice that get exponentially easier to clean when they dry.

So far the only thing I can find online is how spraying awesome sodium polyacrylate "supergoo" on our national monuments will save us from the terrorists' dirty bomb:

The goo isn't only successful; it's also nontoxic. "In fact," he says, "you could literally eat some of the formulations that we've made." But the goo doesn't work everywhere. It works so well on marble partly because the polished marble used on most monuments is extremely smooth -- there aren't many holes to shelter radioactive dust. Brick, on the other hand, is rough, so the gel doesn't work as well. "Removal rates are poor," Kaminski says.
No shit, Sherlock. [Which, I guess, in this case is a good thing.] Obviously, eating is not an option.

OFFICIAL PAMPERS UPDATE: use a hair dryer to dry out the crystals, then vacuum or sweep them up. Wet towels or wipes only keep the superabsorbent polymer crystals superabsorbing.

5 Comments

LMAO! Yes, vaccuum it! I have so been there...ew.

We had something similar happen once. Teufelskind took off his diaper, plopped it onto the floor. He then dropped, ass first, square onto the over-full nighttime diaper. It burst like an overripe melon.

Two options for cleanup we found.
1) buckets of warm, soapy water and a sponge on every hard(ish)surface. Double machine wash for soft toys.

and for all the areas we missed initially,
2) de-humidify, wait for crystals to dry, scrape hard surfaces with credit card, or comb off of fuzzy surfaces. Vacuum loose crystals up.

Non-toxic? Melt it down and mold some baby bottles from it!

What does customer service at Huggies/Pampers/7thGen say?

i'm still not sure why my comments are being flushed down the worldwide toilet? i'm pretty sure my comment was in any way seething or violent, though it was negative in nature

if i'm missing some kind of rule for posting (only sweetness and light?), please drop me a line.

? the most recent comment in the system from you is about Tidy Whiteys.

Nothing on the disposable diaper explosion at all. If you can't get it to work, please email your comments to me, and I'll add them manually.

thnx/sorry

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