 Visit www.thenappylady.co.uk for the Nappy Alliance response to the Environment Agency Life Cycle Analysis of Nappies published May 2005. Some of the responses have been summarised below:
- The ’environmental impact’ cannot be reduced down to a single figure as it relates to many different aspects: production impact, impact during use, waste impact etc. Different countries and situations will rate those different aspects differently. For example Rueval landfill site is to close in 2006 and cost of transporting disposable nappies from Uist and Barra to Lewis will increase their impact.
- Cloth nappies have a greater deal of personal flexibility to minimise the environmental impact of the nappies they use. It is greatly reduced if the consumer buys organic or hemp nappies or chooses not to tumble dry them.
- The cloth nappy information used for the report calculations is based on a far smaller sample size than the corresponding information for disposable nappies.
- The report is based on usage of terry squares, pins, plastic pants, bleaching, boil washing, use of fabric conditioner and tumble drying.
Useful Websites
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Nappy Facts
Each baby uses at least 50 black bags of disposable nappies in their first year. Times the 200-300 babies born each year in the Western Isles that would equate to at least 10,000 – 15,000 bags each year and that only for new babies!
- By the time your baby is potty trained you could use 4,000 to 6,000 disposable nappies. This will cost a minimum of £488 and maybe as much as £732. By comparison you only need from 20-30 real nappies costing as little as £185 including the washing!
- Using the same nappies on your second or third child saves you even more than on the first! Washing at home costs less than £1/week
- Modern washing machines wash so well that real nappies do not need to be pre-soaked or boiled
- By home laundering you can help reduce the environmental impact of nappies. Use energy efficient washing machines and line dry wherever possible.
- At the moment about eight million disposable nappies are thrown away every day in the UK.
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| This material has been reproduced from the website www.wrap.org.uk of The Waste and Resources Action Programme. |
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