This is for the benefit of a friend of mine who thinks I harp on about the subject just a little too much. I see her point … but that doesn’t prevent me from wanting to keep making mine.
I am puzzled by the claim by Pampers that there is little difference in the environmental impact caused by disposables versus cloth nappies. Perhaps, at a stretch, the old fashioned way of doing the cloth nappies (and I mean decades ago) may have had an equally damaging effect on the environment–the nappies were put in buckets and collected by companies in trucks who would take all the nappies to a central laundry where they would be boiled in all sorts of chemicals and dried in huge industrial machines before being pressed and driven back to the collection point.
Even so, this cannot have contributed as harmfully as the massive landfills created by disposable nappies. In England and America alone, 25 BILLION nappies are thrown away each year so it isn’t surprising that 33% of landfills are made up of disposable nappies. Add to that the fact that they take almost 3 HUNDRED years to decompose, meaning that not one disposable nappy has decomposed yet! This is just the half of it; if you start Googling the harmful effects, you will find out about the trees that are cut down to make the nappies, the forests that are destroyed to make the pulp that is used for the gels, etc. etc. The negatives are endless and there is only one positive: convenience.
There is no argument about environmental damage and which variety of nappy is worse … yet people still allow themselves to be tempted by the perceived convenience of disposables. It’s a no-brainer.
I have used both and can state categorically that, not only are the cloth variety no less convenient, but there are actually so many benefits to using them, which I can enthuse about only because I was an instant convert when I started using them when my child was 5 months old. I could have chosen any number of a variety of pre-shaped cloth nappies that require no folding … but folding a square of terrycloth into a nappy is easier than making a paper plane so it didn’t warrant the extra expense (the point is there is no excuse about the folding as there are options). My child had not a single bout of nappy rash due to the cloth being a natural substance and because there are wonderful things called nappy liners, which keep baby dry and which are flushable. My child knew when he was wet or when he had made a poo, which made it so much easier to get him out of nappies really early (yes, I can boast that he was in proper undies at one year)–so, again, a way more convenient option because I only had to wash nappies for just over 6 months. The only equipment required was a nappy bucket with a safety lid which was kept in the bathroom filled with water and a natural organic nappy sterilizer … this meant that the nappies only had to go into the machine every weekend and they could be washed at an environmentally-friendly forty degrees in thirty-five minutes before being hung up to dry.
They may have tiny feet but bringing a child into this world leaves a massive carbon footprint. The least a parent can do is make choices that this little person will not have to pay for in several decades time. It’s time to take an ethical stand and think about the big picture of having a child and not just the selfish desire to procreate.
