Man said disposable nappies should be banned

[rainbowtoenails]

He was a friend of a friend so I bit my lip but I found it quite patronising for a man to be lecturing women on this. He has dcs but I dont think he's changed that many nappies. Easy, then for him to say disposables should be illegal. I tried reusables but it didnt work out for various reasons. I felt guilty about using disposables but they were very liberating. Im no fan of P&G but I think banning them would be a real step back for womens liberation.

As for the sexist issue, well I guess that's for his wife to fight out with him. I certainly didn't get much help on the nappy front; all the more incentive to toilet train early!

yes, lets punish poor women as much as possible, and only let rich women have an easier life. That will help enormously.

also bearing in mind that the very poorest don't have washing machines anyway and still use laundrettes.
And I'm not sure how they feel about people washing dirty nappies there.

LieIns - as I said back in page 2, I do need to use a tumble drier...

No matter how long I leave things to dry inside, they do not get dry. After three days, if your clothes still aren't dry, they either need to be washed again, or they go into the drier. And I'm not prepared to wait three days for my clothes to dry since a). we need them sooner than that and b). they're musty-smelling and unclean by that point.

As I say, I live in a sub-tropical climate - it rains at some point pretty much every day through winter and centrally heated houses are the exception to the rule. Houses can be very damp and things simply do not get dry inside.

I am more environmentally unfriendly via my constant use of the drier, plus the cost of running the thing is much greater than it was when we lived in the UK.

All well and good for those of you in the UK to pontificate on how things should be done. I do mean that light-heartedly, but there's many, many reasons why the uptake of disposables has been so huge.

slap an environmental tax on them and let people make their own minds up

you would be quite within your rights to bite anyone's head off for having a go at women though - it's parents not women who have responsibility for nappies and nappy changing. tbh, having kids at all is not exactly environmentally friendly so maybe it's better to start there and work up to the whole 'what to put on their backside' issue later on. plenty of environmentalists pushing for the 'two child' policy for example

I agree with LieInsAreRarerThanTigers, I wouldn't ban disposables but it would disincentivise them and take the negative externalities created by the use of disposable nappies into account for those who use them.

A good idea would be to change the way we get rid of disposables. If local councils can incinerate nappies and pads for the disables then why not for the rest of the dispo nappy wearers.
It would add an extra bin for households and would need incinerators to be better but it would provice free energy so would be beneficial for everyone.

Yy. Over time reusables are much cheaper than disposables, particularly if you use them for more than one child. (in my case I will be and I have received a lot of hand-me-downs from a friend) BUT convenience is a factor, and if you are a single parent, working long hours, reusables may not be a feasible option. Particularly if you earn very little and have tp do your laundry in a laundrette etc.

Yes, a nappy laundering service from the council for those on lower incomes would be brilliant, but I'd like to see that happening in the current climate.

(As an aside, I'm willing to bet that lower income households have a far lower carbon footprint on average, so their environmental impact is reduced anyway)

Tilly I am of course talking about UK tax/incentive reforms. I only vote in this country and don't think I have that much influence even here!
What do the 'natives' do in your sub-tropical climate, just out of interest?

swallowedafly until the 70s rich and poor all used the same system and washing machines were not in most homes. So dispos are a modern luxury product, not a 'basic'. It is not a rich and poor issue at all and most of the people I know would just not consider using cloth because they perceive it as a hassle, nothing to do with economics. Just like most people I know tumble dry washing even on sunny days because it saves a few minutes, even though it costs more.

Using cloth saves money and a nappy laundry service need not be very expensive to run - there are cost savings to a local authority in reducing waste to ladnill/incineration. There are schemes and grants to fund this type of thing under green initiatives. It is big business which benefits from the majority using disposables, keeping children in them for as many years as possible, and our children and their children who will suffer from the pollution and waste disposal problems it causes.

And, being a left of centre green, I do not equate this type of thing with pricing up the railways, quite the opposite! Let's tax road use more and subsidise public transport! Then all these people who drive their 4 x 4s to Waitrose to buy more nappies might go by bike sometimes, like I do.

SaF I agree with what you are saying about 'green taxes' not being targetted and managed in the correct way - I am in favour of having a 'closed loop' where taxes taken at one end go to solve a problem at the other end. Landfill tax is supposed to fund green initiatives which for example can help people on lower incomes insulate their homes etc. Road charging revenue should be going into public transport.

nappies that can be bought for a fiver a week are a damn site cheaper for these people than putting on the washing machine and the heating to dry them.

Yes there are problems for the poorest, but they are being fleeced by big business (£5 a week, really? I would have thought more, especially in the early days), and the government/local government could do a lot more to help. I think that there should be changes made to the card key utilities costs, help with the cost of the initial purchase, loan of nappies or laundry services, more creative thinking, to solve these underlying problems.

The fact remains that MOST of the population are not on/below the poverty line, and they are still choosing disposables and keeping children in them for 3 years plus in many cases. Who is benefitting from that, really?

I am doing the opposite of missing out economics, I am saying that this is not an issue which can be taken in isolation and I have given examples of other measures I would like to be brought in alongside it. I am suggesting that there should be schemes organised to get people to change, and that these need to be funded from somewhere, so a green tax is one idea.

lots of people scavenge around gathering their pennies to buy that next pack of nappies Yes they do, so let's do something about that, shall we, and stop lining the pockets of the unethical multinationals?

I do take your point about lower-income people having a lower carbon footprint than wealthier ones. Also that the measure of poverty is unsatisfactory and inaccurate. But citing OAPs in a debate about disposable nappies is not really relevant is it?

www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=334

shows that in 2009/10 roughly the bottom 40% of households earn £20,000 or less before adjusting for tax credits and benefits which reduces the percentage of households on less than £20,000 to 20%.