Current government position on the Environment Agency's report on nappies

[SAHMof1]

On Friday the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Ben Bradshaw, said the Environment Agency's 2005 report on nappies used ? appropriate and reasonable ? methods and data! I voted that this was NOT a useful answer!

Also, I wrote to my MP via writetothem.com saying ?
? I would like to bring to your attention ?
? As you may be aware, this report was seriously flawed in many ways (see www.wen.org.uk/general_pages/Newsitems/ms_LCA19.5.05.htm for further details).

I find it disappointing that the Minister of State for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs fails to recognise that parents who use cloth nappies save waste.

May I ask what stance you take on this issue please?

Your thoughts, ladies?

I?ve also created a pledge

Thanks for links. Good to see that they are going to publish an update based on different ways of using reusables - i.e. presumably not ironing them etc...

My main criticism is the way they selected their sample group. When you are looking for a member of a group only making up a small percentage of the population, you generally have to target that group, rather than hoping you will manage to stop one on the high street.
Obviously, they hadn't heard of internet research, they would have found lots of respondents that way.
And to only include cotton nappies is stupid, when bamboo and hemp are commonly used. Oh and the fact that many nappies are used for a second or third child!!
Not a very broad view of the whole thing in my opinion. It seems the initial research was flawed, because they didn't focus their efforts on all aspects of environmental impact. And what about global warming!?!

It amazed me that common sense didn't prevail with the LCA report in that it failed to point out that cloth nappies save waste and landfill. It astounds me that people use the report as an excuse not to use cloth - again common sense and ethics are the issue really not the report - it just makes people who use disps feel better.

Precisely! Not particularly confidence inspiring when coming from the 'environment' agency. [rolls eyes]

Major flaws in the report:

1. Completely ignoring the issue of landfill
2. Assuming that all cloth nappies are washed at 90 degrees (or was it 95?) and ironed ( - do you know ANYONE who does this?)
3. Ignoring the fact that many cloth nappies are used on more than one baby (I have some terry squares that are 36 years old and on their 5th baby!)

I don't see how this can be considered "appropriate and reasonable" when the objective of the report is to evaluate environmental impact. All it does is provide propaganda for the makers of disposable nappies!