To think a tax on nappies is unfair?

[colacolaco]

It just seems like yet again, it’s the poorest families who will be penalized and suffer most from this.

And what next - a tax on sanitary pads and tampons? Because guess what, they’re not very environmentally friendly either.

You might have chosen the wrong partner/husband. Mine does more then 50% of cooking, nearly all the shopping, I put things in the wash and he hangs it up. I organised the household and he does it. It works well for us, prevents my eczema from flaring up and it is the most organised way of getting things done Do do I now after years of abuse. However I'm not so blind (unlike you) to see that it is still the norm for women to be forced to do the majority of these tasks. You are victim blaming.

I've read that a lot of household level initiatives around this just mean more work for women. And more guilt/ responsibility. And as seen on this thread encouraging women to have a go at others.

I mean it won't make a dent. In the scheme of things. And falls to women.

In my work male dominated by far. The women have a stash of bags to take to the shop and put their lunch etc in. Mostly.

The men don't and it wouldn't cross their minds. Mostly.

It's the same with charity stuff, D&I, you name it.

Women's work. Women's stuff. Most of them just don't even register it.

Meanwhile we have the govt renewing trident (massive amount of materials energy etc). A handful of billionaires blasting all sorts into space in an advanced version of my bikes better than yours. Oil and all sorts of shit periodically being dumped into oceans. The taleban and other areas of unrest explosions all over the place.

But yeah. Nappies!

Plus pubs heating the outdoors (??!!) shops offices with lights on all night...

Etc etc etc

The fact that most of our carefully separated recycling ends up dumped or burnt....

@NiceGerbil

All of the things listed there are about children.

I read an article a while ago about how often environmental initiatives mean more work for women.

Of course they do!

Historically, half the adult population (women) did not engage in paid work because the effort of existing required that much labour.

The equality gains if the last century have coincided with technological innovation that replaced this labour.

Do you think it would be possible to have dual income families if it wasn't for washing machines, dryers, dishwashers, long life food, refrigeration, (food packaging, storage and refrigeration allows supermarkets to exist), cheap cars, disposable stuff.

I mean, I'm sure some one will come along shortly to insist they and their DH have high flying careers, and rise at 3 every morning to pick home grown lentils for their DC, but most of us skate through relying on an army of mechanised servants and single use plastic to condense what was once a full time job into a few hours per week.

Unless we are lucky enough to afford non-mechanised servants of course.

Take away the conveniences, and we are back to the mangle.

Just thought. Good point.

Washing machines do consume water electricity. Chemical detergents. And if course the energy materials in manufacture. And disposal. There's plastics in them for sure.

Yes good point.

Ditching washing machines along with using cloth nappies sounds like the most environmentally sound option.

(And when that was the deal babies spent a lot of time sitting on potties!).

'Unless we are lucky enough to afford non-mechanised servants of course.'

Just remembered a thing about working as a cleaner and families insisting on eco products that were way less effective and a general pita for a woman on an hourly rate to get X done.

Meanwhile there's all sorts of stuff going on that is much more impactful.

But noooo! Slap a tax on disposable nappies! Bloody lazy women that'll show them! (JRM idea? About 32 children has never changed a nappy and moreover is inclined to inform the press of this).

Same old same old.

We used cloth. Unlike all the other posters who use them however, I also drive a car and fly in planes. I’ve only been vegetarian for 24 years, so before that ate meat, and am not vegan. So clearly I’d be a roaring hypocrite to criticise anyone else’s environmental choices.

I an interested to hear of all the other working women who used them - reading the thread it seems they were working part time, or ‘working’ meant sat in an office sending emails. You must understand that doesn’t correlate to many others experience of work - not doing 50% nights? Not on your feet without eating/drinking/weeing for 12+ hrs? Then no, your workplace experience is not comparable to many others. I’d not find it easy to criticise others in the same working boat as me who decided to use disposable either.

But noooo! Slap a tax on disposable nappies! Bloody lazy women that'll show them! (JRM idea? About 32 children has never changed a nappy and moreover is inclined to inform the press of this)

It's no-one's proposal. Invented by the newspapers (like charging fir LFTs) to keep up the 'nasty party' trope. Sometimes it does seem that an idea was considered only to be discarded. Others seem complete invention.

And as this one seems to have no originator, I'd put it in the latter category. But it's led to an interesting read, and far more support for re-useables than I would have expected. I think it really does come down to what you get in the habit of using.

I was quite keen to use cloth nappies but the choices felt too many and as a new mum it was just overwhelming to me to make that decision and then work out how/ when they'd get washed.

It needs to be a practice that's shared more widely and where councils who offer grants publicise it more. As with many things I think for many mums it's possibly a confidence thing?

As with many things I think for many mums it's possibly a confidence thing?

Absolutely. I only started part timing DD is cloth when she was about 9 months, before then it just seemed way too scary, I didn't know anyone doing it til I made a mum friend at a baby group who showed me how she did it.

DD2 has been in them since birth, because I know what I'm doing this time!

We used to get all kinds of 'guest speakers' at our local church bumps and babies group, we had a lactation consultant, someone to talk about weaning, a lady from the sling library and a pelvic floor health specialist! It was great. Someone coming in to talk about cloth nappies would have been really useful.

@ReggaetonLente - I agree. I often find articles in magazines or government ideas too far aloof and away from reality. And as this thread shows, half-baked headlines from certain newspapers just confuse everyone.

We had a very active NCT group, not all middle-class earth mothers, we also covered areas where parents where counting pennies to the next pay day and relied on second hand to buy clothes for the children and themselves.

I did an article for our newsletter about my experience with cloth nappies, the good, the bad, the ugly and the funny. I even wrote that I found a friend was out of her mind when I saw her using cloth nappies a year before DD was born and why I changed my mind.

It is this what makes parents look up and take notice. We had a lot of mums telling us that they showed the article to their partner and we managed to get the council to be more open about the grant (I think it was £15 then) by asking the Health Vistors and GP receptionist for help.

It's like period pants, first where only the expensive ones and now you can get them at Primark. If Bodyform moves to period pants in addition to pads and tampons we need Pampers or Huggies to do cloth in addition to disposables.

@Icytundra

I was quite keen to use cloth nappies but the choices felt too many and as a new mum it was just overwhelming to me to make that decision and then work out how/ when they'd get washed.

It needs to be a practice that's shared more widely and where councils who offer grants publicise it more. As with many things I think for many mums it's possibly a confidence thing?

Our council has FB page with stories from real parents and what they do.

It's one of those things that's so easy... When you know!

@AveryGoodlay your point about the cost isn’t really valid. Many councils provide kits for free and if not there are nappy libraries that give out free kits. I do an extra quick wash everyday and two main washes every week (although her clothes are washed in on the main washes too). A quick wash costs about 9p and a main wash 18p. So about an extra £1 in electric per week. Modern nappies shouldn’t be tumble dried. Significantly less than a packet of nappies.

18p is less or about 1kwh of average price electricity, a washing machine uses about 2.5 units for average 40c wash so more like 50p an hour

I was going say same on smart meter a 45m wash is about 45p. That’s without price increase that are coming

There's no claim that reusables are carbon neutral - they aren't, very little really is.

But the manufacture of disposables in addition to the landfill they occupy far outweighs the effects of additional electricity and water used for washing reusables - especially as they serve multiple children.
A lot of people don't think about the resources used in manufacture, but is huge. Water, power, chemicals, fuel for transportation of raw materials and finished product, plus the resources used by the retailers and the consumer in buying them. With cloth these are fewer and a one off. With disposables they are ongoing.

@Megan2018

I am genuinely astounded at some of the comments on here. So much nonsense spouted.

For the record - in our house we both work (I am slightly part time at 30 hours, DH does 45), we don't tumble dry. DD is at nursery for 4 days a week - all in cloth. There are many children at nursery in cloth, it's roughly a third at mine although minor variations in each room. My nursery didn't bat an eyelid at using them and it's not an affluent area.

We both wash and dry them, it's not my job! The machine goes on early and we either hang out to dry or hang indoors to dry. We wash every other day. Solids are flushed, then nappies are rinsed in the machine before a full cycle is run. They dry indoors in 24hrs, less when the heating is on. We use cloth wipes as well as nappies, much kinder on skin and will be used afterwards for mopping up spills etc.

We're only having one child but could easily use the same nappies on 3-4 babies and we will sell on ours once potty trained so they will do multiple children. The initial outlay is less than the cost of disposables for one child, let alone two or more.

Modern cloth nappies don't need soaking, they don't need folding or pinning (although some people do use terries still)- the simplest designs go on and off just like a disposable. It takes longer to buy a pack of disposables from the shop than it takes to load and unload a washing machine. There's really no work at all.

Plus point is we don't have a full bin full of shit - now that stinks.

I could have written this exact post! The only difference is I now have two so they are being rescued for my second now my eldest is potty trained.

So much crap (pun intended) spouted on here and it’s no surprise that people are hesitant to try if this is the rubbish they hear.

@IHateCoronavirus

Maybe the increase in price might encourage potty training. The number of NT untrained children entering school seems to raise every year. I think someone mentioned up thread that the average age is 3.

When my eldest DC were training 10-14 years ago the advice was 2. So I waited for the nearest free week to their second birthday (half-term) and trained them without any bother.

I remember our head calling us in to write a personal care policy for non-SEND children for the first time and we were all .
Now it is becoming the norm.

Plenty of kids, particularly boys, aren't ready at 2. Mine weren't. For every poster who says their child got it in a week at two, you have another saying it took weeks/months. Working parents don't have that. I would gladly have trained DS2 a year ago but he was nowhere near ready.

@User875906 this was my source - www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44340082.amp although a couple of years out of date. Even if your machine does cost 45p for a full wash, still cheaper than a packet of nappies.

I've read that a lot of household level initiatives around this just mean more work for women. And more guilt/ responsibility. And as seen on this thread encouraging women to have a go at others.

This. It’s always women who bear the brunt of this stuff - the actual practical ‘wife work ’ side and the guilt of all the societal expectations. I’m all for helping the environment where possible, but not at the cost of more domestic drudgery for women. I’m also in ‘trendy’ north London, and don’t know a single person who has used cloth nappies. One friend, who actually works for an environmental charity, attempted it for a few months and then sheepishly joined the rest of us with our trusty Mamia multipacks.

And I wonder how many of the posters insisting that we should all now be using these amazing reusable nappies benefited from the convenience of disposables themselves but want to pull up the drawbridge now they no longer have young kids.

FWIW we left DD’s potty training relatively late (she was 2.9), by which time she was fully ready for it and it took all of a week, with next to no accidents. Numerous friends were very vocal about doing it much earlier, went quiet for a while - and then confessed it had been a disaster and they had to do it all again a year later.

I used reusables while on maternity leave. Quickly switched to disposables when back at work. We found we couldn’t manage it in addition to everything else. We still use reusable wipes though.

I’m sure there are people who manage to use reusables while both parents are working but it was too difficult for us.

And I wonder how many of the posters insisting that we should all now be using these amazing reusable nappies benefited from the convenience of disposables themselves but want to pull up the drawbridge now they no longer have young kids.

With respect, this a very silly argument. Just because one generation got to do something that was convenient but extremely damaging doesn't mean the following generation can carry on.

Subsequent generations need to learn from the mistakes of previous ones, not just keep repeating them because it's easy and it's not fair that our parents got to cover the earth with dirty nappies and we don't.

Cloth can be expensive if you want fancy stuff and extras, but it can also be super cheap. My first was in cloth, my second will be, and I’ve never tumbled dried a single nappy.

Particularly if you’re using cloth for more than one baby they are super cheap, easy to use, reliable and don’t cost the earth.

I am fully in support of a disposable nappy tax, but I think the revenue should be put towards offering more cloth incentives (like freebie packs for new parents, which most councils offer).

@Lockheart Ah well, as long as people are telling their sons that it’s back to the mangle from now on, as well as their daughters. And no foreign travel either, I suppose?

I have reared my son to take his equal share of household tasks. He actually did more than dd1 when he lived with me and more than pulled his weight in the house. I don’t expect that has changed now he has a partner.