to ask... If you're comfortably off and don't buy organic / biodegradable nappies etc...

[PramFace2018]

Why not?

Not trying to be goady, just wondering.

I know one couple like this - very comfortable indeed (and I know this for certain), buy the cheapest value meat etc, and buy pampers / buggies so not a cost saving. I think they don't believe in climate change /don't care about animal welfare. Fair enough, their choice.

However if you are comfortably off and don't buy organic and biodegradable, what is your reasoning?

Just wondering... No real reason

Pooleschoolschoice I've found the total opposite. DS has only had nappy rash once, and that was when we used disposables for a week on holiday. Currently having the bathroom redone and so we are using disposables again and once again, his bum is red.

Because even financially secure people don’t like spending more than they have to on a product so emotionally unrewarding?

And I don't really buy the 'they're comfortably off because they shop at Aldi' line. Or rather that's not the people I'm asking this question to. The price shopping can't be more than £100 difference per week, so that's £5k net per year. I'm talking about people who are comfortable by a margin or more than £5k per year.

I don't really know what I'm asking probably, just musing on a Sunday evening...

Not that comfortabley off but its ok to be sanctimonious about biodegradable nappies when you are not expecting your children to be in nappies longer than 2 or 3 id you have a disabled child a lot longer its a whole differant ball game.

Our little man was early and pretty tiny (at 10 weeks he's still not quite 10lbs).

We tried a few options fit-wise. Currently using pampers size 1 as they seem best leakwise (baby boy is very active and most small nappies won't do).

We have some cloth nappies to use. But at the moment, even the small size are too big on him and tend to leak. Hoping to change over in the next month though.

Having a child in nappies beyond 2-3 is IMO most definitely a valid reason to use what is practical / available rather than cloth or hunting out super expensive eco.

I think I'm more interested in reasons for choosing non eco over eco if there aren't other compelling reasons.

A few people have said they don't think eco perform as well, that's the sort of reason I'm after. Or said they don't think organic is worth to cost mark up from a taste point of view - again this is the sort of reason I'm after - wondering how common this view is.

Because I had undiagnosed PND and found being a mum hard enough without having endless bloody soaking and washing of nappies to do. Ditto struggling with breastfeeding.

It’s something I completely agree with in theory but in practise I really didn’t need that hassle. Not great, but no-one is perfect and I try in other ways at other times.

found being a mum hard enough without having endless bloody soaking and washing of nappies to do

This.

I take each day, sometimes hour, as it comes as some days it's bloody hard and I don't know how I've survived. I had cloth nappies but it just felt like having to deal with that on top of everything else I was struggling with would be the thing to tip me over the edge.

"Maybe because they’ve read the actual evidence which shows that cloth actually produces more carbon emissions than disposable"

Only if you tumble dry, wash at 60 or above and only use them for one child.

We line dry, wash at 40 and plan to use our reusables at least twice then sell or donate them so it's definitely more environmentally friendly.

With some things, it’s the initial outlay that is the problem. For example, I have stress incontinence and wear a towel every day. I would love to use reusable ones but can’t afford the cost of buying enough to last me a week (now the boys aren’t at home any more, I can go nearly a week between washes). I have looked, and the ones I would need are c.£9 each - that is £63, which is just too much to pay out in one go.

I don't because organic is a scam. Organic plants are not free from chemicals. They're free from modern chemicals. Traditional chemicals can still be used and the reason we have modern ones is because some of the old traditional ones are bloody awful.

Don't believe me? Go on the soil association website and see for yourself. They list all the stuff that can be used in organic farming and some of it is really nasty.

I felt I was in a battle for survival during the first few months with my pair. I bought the least leaky nappies I could find, pre made up milk in cartons etc. In the following years I have tried to make more eco choices but in the first year I was just about getting through.

Actually - I tell a lie - I have looked on eBay and found them much cheaper - so I am going to give them a go!

So I am embarrassed that I didn’t check properly sooner, and glad I saw this thread.

We're not in the comfortable of bracket as you define it, but we do try to make environmentally should choices as much as we can. We've tried cloth nappies but they always leak (if anyone has any suggestions to stop this I'd be delighted, I'd love to use cloth but can't be changing outfits for two small children multiple times per day!)

By biodegradable nappies I mean Naty etc, not cloth! I totally understand why someone would avoid cloth, have done myself as I said!

My question is more about when in the supermarket why would you choose a non-eco/welfare etc option at a lower price if the equivalent eco option is next to it on the shelf and pricier but you can easily afford the price.

I'm comparing like for like really, just on price vs eco credentials

Research has been done into the environmental impact of nappies. They compared disposables vs reusable (home laundered) vs resuable (service laundered). They found that they impacted the environment in different ways but that overall there was no difference.

Logically there are lots of things that have a much bigger environmental impact than nappies.

Councils’ management of waste.

Organic veg / meat production still means carbon emissions etc.

We use the nappies we’ve found that don’t leak. I think the environmental impact of having to wash things over and over because they had wee on them wouldn’t be great.
Also, one of the reasons well off people are well off is because they economise in certain areas. A lot of people soon wouldn’t be so if they spent all their money on ‘luxury’ items.

I'm not rich enough to answer your question really, but I don't buy biodegradable nappies because I was told that the bin bag it's been put in won't degrade so it's pointless. I buy Richmond and walls sausages because they taste like childhood!

Naty were useless for us, leaked everywhere.

Well the first thing I would point out is that organic dies necessarily mean good but I will assume that you mean good.

Some people are just cheap. There are plenty of wealthy people who don’t have health insurance or send their kids to private schools. This is just an extension of that (albeit less socially irresponsible). I used to know a family growing up who has money growing out of their ears. They sent their children to a dodgy daycare, then a really rubbish school, fed them half rotten food which they bought in bulk at the end of the day at market, didn’t have private health insurance (even though both children had health problems) and so on. Instead they spent their money of cruises and cosmetic surgery. Sadly the children, while likely to come into a huge inheritance, have been badly screwed over. One of them is a heroin addict with constant money problems, no job etc. And the other has severe mental health problems and is stuck studying dead end degree after dead end degree for something to do.

And then of course there are a lot of things that are good products but not good ethically. E.g. nappies or sanitary products. The biodegravld ones are a bit rubbish. Or cars. A little electric bmw wouldn’t be of any use where I live (roads are pretty much tracks in some places and charging points just don’t exist) so a lot of people opt for range rovers as a necessity (especially if they live on a track only route).

With organic produce there are so many issues to weigh up. It is far from organic = good, nonorganic = bad.

Organic plants tend to have a far lower yield. So in genera you need a lot more water per finished quantity of product (be that cucumbers or cotton). If th cotton is grown in countries where people don’t have access to clean drinking water, and yet organic cotton sold to the west does, is that the right choice? Yet non organic cotton uses pesticides etc which effects the run off water. Which would you prefer? To compensate for the lower yield do the organic farms have even larger areas of mono-culture? (Absolutely dreadful for loca ecosystems) I don’t know, but it seems likely. But then if you use man-made fabrics micro and nano sized particles of plastic are released into the water with each wash, contaminating marine life.

Buying organic and using biodegradable nappies make hardly any environmental impact. The best thing you can do to save the planet, by a mile, is having a child less. But that's unpopular.

Oh, I tried Naty, or one like that, but didn’t think they were very good. I think I mainly used Asda nappies because they were good and a reasonable price.

Going to state school and nhs are socially irresponsible choices!?!? Wtf.