Eco disposables - what do you think?

[veryvicky]

I've been asked by a friend to try out some biodegradable disposables that are going to launch here later in the year. Has anyone had any experience of eco disposables and what do you think? According to the company they will biodegrade in 6 months (pampers/huggies 100 years!), but they're still going into landfill as opposed to using reusables. Confused!

personally i wouldn't choose them on an environmental basis.
landfill is anaerobic, which means the nappies won't biodegrade anyway.

i might consider them as an alternative to cloth, simply to avoid all the chemicals in regular nappies though.

that said, there is a market for them, there are several brands already out there which sell very well

we use nature babies at night and on hols as an alternative to cloth for both environmental and chemical reasons. incidently they don't have to go to landfill you can compost them yourself

You can compost some eco disposables yourself, moltex suggests using a wormery.

www.ecobaby.ie/composting/vermicompost01.htm

You need to be very very confident in your composting process though to then use the resulting compost to grow veg etc. Standard composting will not kill all the nasties in a soiled nappy. Vermicomposting might depending on who you believe, but you need to make sure it is working 100% correctly. If all you are looking for is a way to remove the nappies from the waste stream though, you should be good. BTW, most eco disposables are not 100% compostable.

I thought they were just a bit of a rip off (unless composting them yourself) because in landfill very little biodegrades because so little oxygen is available for the process, its an anaerobic environment. Plus, if you put them in a nappy sack or bin bag it makes buying the eco nappies pretty much a total waste, though there are some degradable nappy bags you can get.

I think using washables is probably better environmentally, certainly in terms of landfill.

you;d need a bloody big wormery to compost the amount of a nappies a baby gets through tho

washables are much better. according to enviroment agency lifestyle report washed sensibly and line dried they are 40% better for the environment. even if you have to or want to tumble and use an older (less efficient) washing machine they are neutral and that is before you take into account the landfill aspect. 80 million sposies a day into landfill - a day!! for some odd reason the report didnt take this aspect into account.

if you do need to use disposables though i would opt for eco if you can afford it. is not just that they can be composted, but also to do with production. amount of oil, chlorine bleaching, chemicals etc. most good eco nappies try to minimise these aspects too. moltex oko, bambo and nature baby do. own brand supermarkets dont get quite such a good report here. and yes unless you put them in a biodegradable nappy sack AND bin bag then not much use being able to biodegrade in landfill. probably not much use even then as is anaerobic.

I'm strongly pro cloth. But do think eco sposies are better than pumpers or hoggies. Check out ethical consumers guide to nappies, pumpers get a shocking ethical rating.

Oh my god composting them in a wormery?? We had a wormery a few years back and it couldn't even cope with the small amound of food waste we were putting in it let alone a babies supply of nappies!

Like others have said, eco disposables are just a greem wash IMO, most will end up in the landfill and NOTHING biodegrades in there so really what is the point other than falsely making you feel a bit better about you choice.

Reusables are the way to go :)

when we are at my parent's we use tushies, they are compostable. at home we don't have a garden or compost bin, so they are pointless.
most "eco" disposables still have polymer (sp?) so can't be composted.