Man said disposable nappies should be banned

It does make me gag when renewablist-recyclist types bang on about disposable nappies and then promptly jump in a massive car to drive to work. They just can't see the irony.

Personally, I think disposables are the biggest labour saving babycare device man has ever invented. No nappy rash and stinking buckets of soaking reusable nappies neither.

I use both on dd3, reusables for day and dispos for night. I actually prefer the reusables but don't quite trust them on a night.

I do however have the dispos incinerated rather then put in the hosuehold waste as ds is disabled and his nappies are taken to the incinerator by the council so I slip dd's in with it.
Why can't councils do this for all babies not just for disabled peoples nappies?

And regarding poo in a landfill you aren't supposed to put poo in the household waste you are meant to flush the poo first. I know I don't know of anyone who does either.

I don't think it is a womens lib issue but it is a parenting issue and environmental issue

But I don't agree disposable should be banned. All the SAHDs I know use disposable strangely enough.

"Washing nappies is less time consuming than ironing which millions of people seem obsessed with and I don't get at all."

Totally with you there! Ironing - what is the point. I spend approximately an hour a year ironing, and use that time saved to wash reusable nappies . Never had any problems with reusable - found them very easy. Biggest problem is finding somewhere to put the nappy bucket - but I am liking SGM's idea!

"how the fuck can you say its as easy to use reusable nappies as disposable? It is in its arse. Disposable: buy, use, throw away. Reusable: all that washing and drying, its not easy at all."

Well you don't have to go and buy reusables every week so I never have to do an emergency trip to the supermarket cos dd has gone through more nappies than I expected or dh has forgotten he opened the last pack and didn't tell me.

I don't have empty my bin as often.

I'm washing stuff anyway so don't even notice any extra work. Didn't even notice it being much work when we took them to Morocco and hand-washed them.

As for it affecting women more than men, I guess generally speaking it does. Dh has always done at least his fair share of nappy changing. I'd say he does 2-3 per weekday and I do the same and he does most of them at a weekend. So although I'm at home all the time with the kids he actually changes more nappies than me. I know that's not the case for everyone though.

And I used cloth nappies for both my DCs

Anything that affects women disproportionately more than men, is a feminist issue.

OP I wonder if your friend is in favour of banning cars as well, because they're bad for the environment?

Why does everyone think cloth nappies are so difficult to use? I really don't think you can comment on this unless you've tried them. Mine go in a dry bucket, then I put a wash on every 2 days. What's hard about that? Time-wise, I'm not having to mess about with a nappy sack for every nappy, or deal with a bin full of smelly disposables (my cloth don't smell btw, they're in a lidded bucket). With regard to flushing the poo, did you know that you're actually supposed to flush poo from a disposable as well? Human waste shouldn't go in a bin.

With regard to the environmental impact, as someone else mentioned, it is often overlooked that most cloth nappies are reused for multiple children, & then sold on after use.

As for banning disposables, I think this is silly, everyone has a right to choose, but I do agree that companies should have to make them at least partially biodegradable.

I really don't see that this is a feminist issue at all, plenty of men use & wash cloth nappies, my dh included!

Rainbow, I really think that your friend shouldn't be using nappies at all, after all, it's all wasteful.

He should be practising elimination communication. While his wife does something else with her time.

" it's just as easy to use reusable nappies and far cheaper."

How can you say it's just as easy? Once a re-usable nappy has been dirtied, it has to be cleaned and dried. Once a disposable nappy has been dirtied, it is thrown away. One is obviously far easier to use than the other.

" The disposable vs reuseable debate is an environmental one rather one of parenting IMO. "

Sadly 'the environment' doesn't get involved in nappy changes, especially late night ones. And definitely does not get involved in washing, cleaning and drying nappies...

Therefore, it is most definitely IS a parenting issue, as well as an environmental one. It is fine and easy to pontificate on the benefits of one type of nappy over the other, when you're not the one who does the dirty work. If the OP's friend does at least 50% of the changing and cleaning, then fine, he can have an opinion on it.

I don't really see the connection between disposable vs reuseable nappies environmental impact and the environmental impact of war. Both are damaging to the environment but in very different ways

He can comment. Just as we can comment on the environmental impact of war. Which after all is a male dominated business.

The disposable vs reuseable debate is an environmental one rather one of parenting IMO. It is fairly widely accepted that reuseable nappies are better for the environment than disposable ones so I don't see the problem with this statement.

how the fuck can you say its as easy to use reusable nappies as disposable? It is in its arse. Disposable: buy, use, throw away. Reusable: all that washing and drying, its not easy at all.

I can see that disposables are very convenient, but I don't like the thought of millions of tonnnes of nappies (not to mention millions of tonnes of poo!) being sent to landfill. My understanding is that nappies take a very long time to beak down in the environment, so presumably our landfills are filling up with them!

Taking out the rubbish and doing car maintenance is not like cleaning up shit.

Try it. Then say it's the same. I'd rather do either of the two things you mentioned. Added to which, both of the jobs you mention happen only weekly while scraping and cleaning up a baby's shit happens 3 or 4 times a day (or is it more? I've blocked it out....)

I take care of the rubbish in my house. Is it patronizing for my DW to give opinions on the virtues of recycling?
I drive more than DW and take care of the car maintenance. Is it patronizing for her to talk about eco-friendly cars?

I absolutely agree with him, so long as we introduce the rule that fathers should do all the laundry for all nappies in the first year, seeing as how mothers are busy breastfeeding and/ or recovering from birth. After that time, he would have to do at least 50% of the nappy laundering. Any father not obeying that rule, would have to be sent to prison for ten years, where he would be allocated to laundry duties. Washing the smalls of screws and murderers.

Sounds like a fun social occasion you had there, rainbowtoenails.

Ideally we'd go back to using disposables in the way they were when first introduced - for convenience when reusables are less practical, eg holidays, long journeys etc.

But it's ridiculous to talk about banning them.

I'm not terribly fussed that it was a man saying this as long as he'd thought about the practicalities of what he was talking about. I doubt it though.

let him use reuables - him, not his wife.

OK, I don't know the details well. There's the landfill of course, but what about the costs of obtaining, heating and disposing of water? They don't mention that at all. I think that's basically a one-sided source of information.

But anyway, the OP's friend-of-friend may be obnoxious, but you say he was right, then?