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.

Just to butt in, LieIns.

In the 70s the social demographic was rather different too, with the overwhelming majority of mother's staying home and doing all the housework. Now, still have a situation where housework and (particularly baby poop etc) still falls mainly on the woman's shoulders whether or not she WOH. (There are of course exceptions but these are not the norm)

Let's also not forget that cloth is more hassle not a lot, certainly not more than will put me off using them (but I'm a SAHM) and that is a HUGE consideration when already strapped for time.

This is a feminist issue (as well as environmental and cost) and pricing reusable nappies out of the reach of the majority of households will have a much larger impact on women lower-incomes.

Where I used to live there was a fantastic service that would wash reusables for you. I used liners, put them down the loo, then put the soiled nappy in a nappy bin and then to a dustbin outside. Every Friday an electric van came along, took the soiled nappies and gave me fresh clean ones. So absolutely no more effort than disposables, yet even greener than washing your own as they are washed centrally leading to economies of scale. And I could be quietly environmentally smug without any effort on my part . The cost worked out the same as buying disposables. Sadly the service closed as not enough people were using it which I found really sad - if the majority used companies like this it would IMO be win win for all. Better for environment, easy for parents and benefiting small local companies in place of the disposable conglomerates.

I accept what you are saying MBJ, I just feel that ignorance and/or laziness have a much bigger part to play here than poverty or too-busy working mums. I know middle class women having babies now who get a year's maternity leave then use a childminder. They are using disposables. Even one who is quite green in many ways did not use the cloth nappies I GAVE her, because she 'just never got round to it' - she did not even try them once, so it is more a perception than a fact that they are more hassle.

I was mostly SAH with DD, but her childminder from 18 months used my cloth nappies and helped to potty train her. I worked PT from 8 months with DS. Other than the day he spent at nursery, I still used cloth. Even on camping holidays and at 3 festivals, where there was a nappy laundry service!
There is nothing special about me, I was just motivated to find my way round any problems in order to use cloth, and I saved hundreds of pounds in doing so.

I agree it's a feminist issue. But one for individuals to fight out with their partners more than anything which can be achieved with a policy change? I lost that one!
SaF, The working mother you describe would certainly find it harder than the majority of people, but don't think she is a typical working mum. She would certainly save money by bf, though - that is a feminist issue too, isn't it?

I'm having DC2 in October and until, at least, bf is established we are going back to full time disposables. Why? Because as wonderful as DH is and as much housework and general stuff he will do when I am busy on the sofa feeding with the newborn. He won't wash nappies. He'll change them, flush the poo down the loo, wipe bottoms, Hoover, clean the kitchen, cook dinner, take the bins out etc, but he won't do nappies.

And in that senario, neither will I, it is the least pleasant of all the household chores, and I do it because I feel it is ther gut thing to do (and cheaper) but I will not make myself a martyr to the cause.

The right thing, god alone knows what ther gut is supposed to mean.

What about women without partners though?

Oh, and another point. The real reason DH won't do nappies is because he values the 10 minutes of sitting down doing nothing after a full day's work more than the £5 it will cost him in disposable nappies.

Personally, I think women should be afforded the same rights to judge which they value higher, and it isn't for the rest of society to proscribe to them from some sort of moralistic high ground.

TheRealMBJ - spot on. When I was changing nappies the main idea was convenience and speed. I remember my mother boiling nappies, stinking nappy buckets and leaking plastic pants when my sister was a baby.

No thanks.

Yes that's true MBJ and I think women do still feel more pressure in general to work hard in the home, sometimes also as well as out of it, and that is a feminist issue.
But we could use disposable plates, cups and cutlery, ready meals/takeaways, even buy cheap packs of babygros at Primark and throw them away instead of washing them, couldn't we, just for a few extra quid a week?
Funnily enough I could coerce my dh into putting a load of nappies in the machine (he could wear rubber gloves and hold his breath for the few seconds it took!) but he probably only changed ten nappies per baby, disposable or otherwise! (Think he found dealing with a machine easier than a baby's nether regions) [sceptical]

MoreBeta things have moved on a bit since then in the cloth nappy world, (if not in North Yorkshire )

celadon - modern incinerators have scrubbers and technology fitted to deal with noxious emisisons. The ash from the burn is widely used in roadfill in other countries after metal and glass has been extracted from it.

Incineration is widely used in other countries where the waste heat, not just electricty, is used to heat municipal buildings. Vienna has a well loved municipal incinerator right in the middle of the city and people there are very proud of it. Its just the Uk where we have the NIMBY attituide that we prefer to dump in landfill, out of sight out of mind, rather than build proper ways of recycling our waste.

I dont sell incinerators.

TBH i think the discussion about cost and the environment is diverting away from the fact that it is a feminist issue.

i've used both and i find people at both ends of the pro/anti-cloth to be talking mince. it's not that much extra work but it is some and the type of housing you live in and the level of heating you normally have on make a massive difference to the ease of use. while the financial costs of disposble nappies are not that high if you shop the way i shop (i aimed to pay 9-10p for a single Huggies nappy, and the most i ever paid was 12-13p). i actually found cloth a pain financially as it meant that lots of clothing presents went to waste as the clothes wouldn't fit over the nappy - which in effect cost me money!

i've never had the option to use a laundry service but had a friend who did and gave it up as it was still slightly more work than disposables and was costing significantly more.

And the main reason my dh was all in favour of cloth (as he wouldn't change nappies of any kind except under extreme duresse!) was because he is a tightwad!

MoreBeta perhaps

Never had any problems fitting an outfit over a cloth nappy. Not once.

'in fact lets make it so only rich people can use nappies, large vehicles, city roads - in fact lets just out price petrol so only the elite can drive full stop. and whilst we're at it why don't we make the cost of gas so high that the elderly and disabled can't afford to heat their homes.. oops we already did that last one.'

ssshhhhh Osborne maybe reading!
We already cant afford petrol or heating.

dds nappies are classed as medical waste and incinerated. And the buggers leak at every single wee causing more washing. I hate them.

I agree with the classification riven. Surely all nappies are medical waste? But AFAIK it's currently more expensive to deal with medical waste than to landfill. Perhaps if our default was to incinerate, and we used the co erred energy for heat and electricity, it would be otherwise?

possibly. I have no idea why nappies become 'medical' once a child reaches 4 and the council take them away in a special collection. Least incineration deals with bacteria and viruses etc.

You could say all areas of raising a child is a feminist issue. From getting pregnant to seeing them off to start their own lives it is usually the women who does the majority.
So what is the answer. There isn't one, people will do what they want, within reason, based on their and their families experiences.
I choose to bf as I know it is best for baby. I don't see it as hard work or an injustice that I have had to give up alcohol. i certainly don't expect dp to give it up.
I use reusables as I like them and I do feel they are a better value to dispos. It has it downfalls, dryer has broke and weather is shit so having trouble drying but I still prefer to use them

an observation from the sidelines:
I planned to use cloth and didn't (much) because I had to lug my laundry up and down three flights of stairs to the machines in the basement. And then go down to change them over to the dryer or bring them up to airdry in my tiny flat. The nappies themselves (Bambinex teddies) are brilliant - fleece dries very quickly, doesn't smell, slim and fit under cheapo babygros, I can chuck them into a 40 degree wash with the rest of ds's clothes- but the lugging was one thing too much for us to do, what with us both working long hours and the general new baby exhaustion.

We've just moved house to a place that has a washer and drier in the flat, and a porchy/veranday place where I've got a big clothes horse for drying. We're using the cloth again, though not overnight. It's just got easier to use them, just that tiny amount easier to put the nappies in a lidded bucket and then the washing machine than wrap a disposable and take it downstairs and outside to the bin. And that was how much easier it needed to get.

DS will go to nursery full time in Sept, and they won't do cloth there (usa, they don't have to) so we'll be back in the Luvs I should think. (we get them at Costco). I wish we could afford the highly biodegradable ones but we can't. For us, it's either the cheaper disposables or cloth - a financial issue more than an environmental one.

And our decision to use cloth, while I was pregnant, was predicated on DH changing every single nappy while he was in the house. That was the breastfeeding deal- input = Mum, output = Dad. And he's honoured that! But then, nappies bloody well are a feminist issue. It's shitty work and (in general) women do most of it. That makes it a feminist issue for me.

Hmm.. what wins; environmental issues or women's liberation (as achieved through disposable nappies)? Nice to see lots of comments automatically claiming that men (all 3bn of them) never change nappies so they aren't permitted to have opinons on the subject... Quite apart from the issue of generalisations and reinforcing stereotypes (isn't that supposed to be a bad thing?), in respect of those people without a direct involvement, objectivity is surely a valid aspect of any debate? Otherwise, unless we have direct and current involvement in education, health care, defence, social security etc, we shouldn't be voting. I thought there were fights for the right to do that?