Filling landfills or wasting water....

[robin3]

For DS2 a friend has gone 80% of way to persuading me to use the washable nappies but DP still thinks that we should concentrate on saving water this summer and this would surely create another couple of loads a week if not more.

What d'ya reckon?

And the assumed comparison of pul and plastic backing does not extend to the breathable properties that pul has but plastic hasn't.

Thanks, azroc, will go read it.

This is interesting, I've learnt heaps. Bound not to remember much of it sadly (pregnant brain=sieve).

They do use water in the process of manufacturing disposable nappies, not to mention oil (another scarcity). I was more persuaded by the thought of all those chemicals near DSs testicles and the possibility of infertility due to wearing plastic pants for 2+ yrs. Cloth has come such along way from terries, pins and rubber pants, with newer breathable fabrics (and some old ones too - wool for instance).

I reckon give it a try, just buy 5 nappies and see how you go (if you are also worried about cloth nappy manufacture, pick them up 2nd hand from eBay, that way you start from zero impact)

What do people mean by 'plastic'?

Disposable nappies use a non-woven, rayon based material in the outer shell, which is 'breathable' and water-repellant.

I don't know a lot about PUL, but in general, polyurethane is not something that you equate with letting anything past at all.

scienceteacher, I don't think anyone has argued what you suggest, ie that disp nappies are bad because they use petrochemical products, while cloth is good because it's only natural fibres. It's true that cloth is mostly natural fibres which is great. But PUL is one of the things that make it most workable. You can get both breathable and non-breathable PUL. The breathable stuff, which is used in the wraps, is (like the disp layer you describe) breathable because it has microscopic holes that are big enough to let air circulate but not big enough to let water circulate.

I'm sorry I don't have the data to hand, but I don't think even the disp manufacturers argue that their nappies are more breathable than cloth. I remember seeing something where the disp manufacturers were forced to admit that although the outer layer is breathable and was strongly marketed as such, this in fact made no different to the breathability next to the skin, as the air that got past the outer layer couldn't actually make it through the rest of what's inside the nappy. From memory, I think it was from a complaint about misleading advertising and they had to withdraw/modify their claim. Read the pack carefully and see if you can work out exactly how 'breathable' it is next to the baby's bottom.

But bottom line is, you need maybe 20 nappies and 6-8 wraps versus several thousand disps. That's where the environmental benefit lies and you could make cloth ALL out of plastic and it would still walk all over disposables!

PARP

Bloss,

If cloth nappy users could be a tiny bit more open-minded, this might make a really interesting discussion. Unfortunately, most are unwilling to face facts. If you want to use cloth because you get a personal kick out of it, or because you think it saves your family money, then great. That's wonderful. But it doesn't mean you should romanticise them, and lambast the alternative (that 90% of other mothers use).

For all the truisms that have been bandied around on this thread, it is rather interesting to find the source of them and to find out there is far more to it than meets the eye.

What does PARP mean?

It means 'I've seen this a thousand times and it always winds me up to no purpose, so I will not post on here'.

Actually, I always 'sell' cloth to other people on the basis that it's a far better product. It just works better than disposables - fewer leaks and a fraction of the price. The environmental stuff is, for me, the icing on the cake because although it makes me happy I'm not enough of an eco-warrior to put up with a bad product when I'm harried enough by life with small babies.

But what exactly is closed-minded about all this? I've used disposables full-time and cloth full-time. I will freely admit the advantages of disposables: they are less intimidating to use for the novice, and are more convenient when washing facilities are not easily to hand such as when travelling. But if one believes strongly, as I do, that cloth are a better product and are better for the environment, can't we say that too?

I know you came into this thread late, Bloss, but if you read the whole of it, and you see talk of TBT nonsense - completely unsubstantiated and no thought given to it at all - just a straw to grasp at in order to their choice superior. Then the insistance that disposable nappies are made of plastic, when they are clearly made from wood. I wont even go into the number of nappy changes...

Actually, 90% of families use disposables, so that's the most compelling figure of all. Obviously they are being duped by the manufacturers, right, because they are too stupid to know any better, right? Or maybe they have been reading the cloth nappy support threads here at Mumsnet and drawn their own conclusions.

I will concede that we clothies can get a bit shrill at times, and I am sometimes uncomfortable with the claims that are made. (TBT is not entirely unsubstantiated, btw. It was found ONCE in a brand of German disposable nappies - but too much has been made of it IMHO.) But I do think they have a point.

It's my belief that 90% of people use disposables because they know nothing about cloth. Ask most people, and they still think it's terry squares, soaking, increased nappy rash and rubber pants (witness some of the comments on here). I can honestly say that of the HUNDREDS of people I know who've tried cloth, not one has gone back to disposables IF they have had the right advice and done enough research to find the right products.

Your 90% figure does not reflect those people who are equally knowledgeable and experienced and then choose disposables. For the vast majority of people, disposables are presented as the only sensible option, unless you are the eco-warrier knit-your-own-placenta type. They honestly don't understand that cloth is different now - simple to use and far more effective than disposables in doing the job: namely containing wee and poo.

or possibly, like me they didn't know there was a workable alternative to disposables, it took me 11 mths (and lots of wet and pooey bedding and clothing) before I found out that cloth didn't just mean folding pinning boiling...

The reason some of us are such zealots is we don't get to launch million pound advertising on TV and so many parents don't know that there is a choice here, it's not like you even have to use one or the other exclusively, but to read (on MN and others) how nappies aren't working in certain situations and to know there's a good alternative, if only people would give it ago, is very frustrating

So use truthful arguments, and not red herrings, Vkone.

"Actually, 90% of families use disposables, so that's the most compelling figure of all"

Nothing compelling about it at all really. Think of the % of people who, for example, smoked before the pitfalls were discovered. I'm not for one moment comparing smoking with using disposable nappies simply making the point that just because x% do something doesn't make it the best thing. Disposable nappy users haven't been duped by the manufacturers at all - the nappies do exactly what they claim to do. What the manufacturers don't do is make any reference to the impact on landfill sites or any implications of the manufacturing process or products used to make them.

"It's my belief that 90% of people use disposables because they know nothing about cloth"

Absolutely. I was certainly one of them. I used disposables with DS1 and 2 because I thought cloth was a PITA and involved soggy bags of fabric strapped round your poor child's damp bottom with a complicated folding and pinning process. I've sincediscovered a washable nappy that works like a disposable. It's synthetic and I understand the enviromental impact of synthetic materials, I@m not stupid, but these 15 nappies will take up a infinitely smaller space in a landfill site when they eventually reach the end of their usable life. And that life will be a long way in the future since they will last BabyDragon until she is potty trained in 3 years or so and then probably last another baby when I sell them on. Imagine how many disposables would be cluttering up the environment in that time.

I notice comments about the impact of cotton farming on the environment. I agree this is appalling but I don't htink washable nappies are anywhere near the main cause of this but rather the clothing industry. I trust you will be switching to organically and ethically produced cotton from now on?

So the cotton used in cloth nappies is insignificant, yet the the wood used in disposable nappies is not? Detergent and energy used in laundering is insignificant, yet landfill space is not?

I think the biggest environmental concern we have at the moment is that of global warming and climate change, believed to be due to high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Growing trees to make nappies, which then do not decompose back into CO2 is a benefit to the environment, especially when the alternative is to use energy and therefore produce more CO2.

The current drought situation in the southern part of the UK is an important factor to consider, and if the worst happens and we end up with a restricted water supply, what will you do then?

I put newborn breastfed baby nappies straight in the wash with the other clothes (as they all had poo on them anyway in the early days until I got good at it!)

Well, having been a die-hard disposie gal (Nature B&G tho) I've just bitten the bullet and ordered 4 minki yoyos for dd2. I hear the arguments about cotton farming, water shortages, synthetics inside nappies etc, but I am sure that all these downsides are enormously outweighed by the reduction in number - i.e. if I end up with 8 nappies, which I use for 12mo and then sell on (dd is 16mo), this MUST have a lower env impact than 12mo of fairly eco-friendly disposables.

I may not get on with them - they may be on the for sale boards here in 3 weeks' time, but I am giving them a try thanks to MN members persuading me to do so.

Don't intend to tumble dry mine BTW, they are fleece-based so will dry quickly draped in the airing cupboard, using the energy already used to heat our water.

My nappies get shoved in with other washing so no extra water or detergent there.

The enviromental impact of millions of non decomposing nappies in landfil sites is competely unknown at the moment. We won't know what we've done until many years in the future. The same goes for all other items involving plastic - can't remember the exact % but I saw on an advert that 90% (I think) of plastic ever made is still in existance, mostly cluttering up landfill sites.

Pretty much nothing we do has no enviromental impact, it's a case of picking and choosing where you're going to try and lessen your own impact really. I compost stuff, recycle stuff, choose cloth over disposable and conserve energy and water. I still drive a car and fly on long haul holidays. I still use detergents, cleaning chemicals, synthetic materials and non-organic cotton.

(and I only use my tumble drier for towels because I like them fluffy and I'm about to use the water reclaimed via the condenser to water my hanging baskets)

What about the spurius claims made by disposable nappy manufacturers, all this stuff about "dryness" and it's links to nappy rash, not to mention the latest sleep through the night in a pampers campaign.

What ever you may think of stuff about over heated testicles and wood pulp or plastics you cannot get away with the fact that disposables have chemicals in them, chemicals that are being tested by babies, whose skin is thinner and more vunerable than an adults, it's just not an experiment I care to take part in anymore

Don't forget htat cloth ones have chemicals too if they're not a natural fibre though.

Not spurious, Vkone. Disposable nappies do keep moisture away from the baby's skin, thanks to osmosis. Nappy rash is due to a mixture of urine and feces touching the baby's skin - keeping the urine away, is a major factor in preventing nappy rash.

There is plenty of clinical evidence, complete with blind assessments.

Cloth does that too though Scienceteacher so it is kind of spurious in that the alternative does it just as well. Misleading rather than spurious really.

'So the cotton used in cloth nappies is insignificant, yet the the wood used in disposable nappies is not? Detergent and energy used in laundering is insignificant, yet landfill space is not?'

You keep putting up straw men, scienceteacher. If every baby had to use 3000 cloth nappies, then you'd be absolutely right. The cotton would be hugely significant. But like I said before, you could make the nappies out of plastic and they'd still walk all over disposables because you only need 20 of them. And the environmental comparison of cloth must naturally include detergent and energy for laundering. But the environmental cost of disps is not just landfill, which is the only element you have mentioned, but also the use of petrochemicals, the use of energy and water and wood in their production, the pollution costs of huge transportation issues (from factory to ship, from port to port, from port to warehouse, from warehouse to supermarket, from supermarket to home), plus all the plastic that disp users typically throw in with it, like plastic nappysacks and disposable wipes. (Clothies tend to use reusable and washable versions of these too.)

Anyway, as I said before, the main reason to use cloth is because it's a BETTER nappy.