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.

but at the same time, the people I know who are lentil weavery at home also tend to be the ones who are politically engaged with the wider sphere as well, they're not mutually exclusive.

ok so we are on the dole which means we are both at home. and have limited money.
DP almost exclusively changes ds and changes about a third of dd2 and 3

I think there is truth in what you say sAf, but then again, I (and most of us) can only really impact on our own small reality. That said, I'm not an evangelical clothbummer and a large reason I use them is because I don't like waste, it goes against my Calvanistic up-bringing, and the look nicer than Pampers.

I use reusables and DH does his fair share of nappy changes. I have probably done more nappy changes than him if we are counting though as I was on ML for a year. Now, I would say we roughly share DS's care on a week to week basis (I say roughly because the number of days each of us is in sole charge changes from week to week due to DHs shifts.)

I realise I am in the minority and if I was a single parent/didn't have a washing machine/didn't have anywhere to dry etc I probably wouldn't consider reusables. As blackcurrants said upthread there is a tipping point where it becomes viable and not too much of an extra burden. For me, the fact that I have help with that and other chores around the house makes it a lot easier. I use disposables when they are more convenient e.g. on holiday.

And don't worry SAF you haven't offended me - you did make me chuckle with "martyr" though - I am probably the least martyrish most lazy person you could meet.

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This is just like a man saying that a woman should visit all the local shops, butcher, baker, greengocer, take up half the morning, just because she is a sahm.

It is a feminist issue when women are doing the changing and washing. And food buying.

So do those who think disposables should either be banned or hiked in price as luxury goods, also think we should do the same for bog-roll and tissues?

Because if not, your position is inconsistent...

Are disposables that much more detriminental to the environment, when you take into account the detergent, boiling water and tumble dryer use necessary to make the use of cloth nappies vaguely bearable?

SAF I'm a single parent using reusables, all of which are second hand and 75% of them were from freecycle. i bought the few others on nappy tree and locally and paid no more than £2.00 per nappy/wrap.

It's cheaper for me, less time consuming and I want to contribute as little as possible to the mountain of nappies at the dumps.

anotherplace see research on the first page and the link to see how much less damage to the environment reusables are. It also takes into consideration all the queries you have.

Amotherplace, i washed nappies at 40 and hung them on the line. They were terry squares. Probably the cheapest method and they did 4 kids

But once number 4 turned 3 i ge.t id done enough. She is an environmental disaster anyhow!

In your view, what are the rough roles of a SAH parent and their working partner, goodasgold?

Also, can't say I know of anyone passionately arguing over the use of the local greengrocer!

saf I'm someone who uses reusables but barely changed a nappy for the first six months and still doesn't if DH is in the house [smuggity smug emoticon]. The input/output deal is still holding good. And it bloody well should be, since I'm the one getting up in the night with DS cos of the magic power of boob to get him back to sleep. That's also why I get the weekend lie-ins while the household males watch cartoons and rub cereal into the carpet have breakfast.

I don't engage with the identity politics of a lot of attachment parenting stuff, as it makes my blood boil. I do tend to think that when someone is in cloth nappies and into breastfeeding and blw and other such things, the onus is often on the mum to do all of it. Do you ever read the blog Blue Milk? Aussie feminist, fab writer - and she looks hard at how attachment parenting clashes with feminism/ female autonomy if you're not working to avoid that clash. We're not "proper" attachment parents (I went back to work when DS was 4 weeks old, ffs) but I am still breastfeeding with no plans to stop, we do use cloth, and we do BLW and blah blah blah.

I think there is some smug martyry stuff around, but for us the cloth thing was about the money. And we've only been using them LOTS in the last few weeks since we moved, and we've definitely saved a packet. Machine wash at 40c with other clothes, line dry. But as I said upthread- only cos it's easier now than it was before. I doubt I would have done it if I was bringing him up alone. MY energy is also a precious resource!

Well, bog roll and tissue are biodegradable, but a hell of a lot of trees are chopped down to make an item that is essentially just thrown away - plus all the fuel used to manufacture and transport them.

If we're saying disposable nappies have enough of an impact on the environment to consider banning them (as the OP's friend wishes to decree), then it does seem to be inconsistent to not also say that we should only be using re-usable, washable loo roll, and handkerchiefs...

Hmm... I don't think it is only AP that clashes with feminism/female autonomy etc, but all parenting. In our society, as soon as you have a child, unless you work hard for it not to, the onus falls on the mother. In fact, sometimes the AP course of thing (well, co-sleeping/bf part anyway) is to the mother's benefit, in that it actually lessens her workload. It is often the male partner who is anti-bed-sharing/pressuring mum to stop bf. Or at least that is what I've gathered from the posts on the bf/ff board on here.

HerBex unbleached recycled toilet roll is far less damaging to the environment than disposable nappies. And I do train my children to use a lot less than I have seen other children use!
And I have never bought a box/pack of tissues - I use the loo roll or save napkins from cafes.
amothersplace ditto re: 40 degree wash, no tumble dryer in four years of cloth nappy use.

I have used cloth nappies on DS since he was born. When he was around 18mo, I started using disposables at night because the clothies started leaking and changing him would wake him up too much (he wakes very easily). He is still in night disposables, and if we go away for a few days, he goes in disposables as well rather than lug an airtight nappy bucket around with us. We use the Nature Babycare ones - might be more expensive but they are mostly biodegradable so I feel less guilty; and they have fewer chemicals in them so better for DS's gonads.

He wears a cloth nappy during the day - no longer poos in it, insists on pooing on the loo - but wees in it. I don't change it every time, he gets a clean nappy in the morning and then maybe one more change in the day, depending. He doesn't care and is currently refusing to come out of nappies (mildly irritating but no point pushing him) and his skin is fine and peachy.

So, because he doesn't need changing as much as he used to, the nappies only get washed once a week, maybe 10 days (I love my nappy bucket). In the early days, I had to do a load every day, every 2 days max but it's gradually diminished.

The clothies he has now are the same as the ones he was using from Day 1. They get napisaned and washed at 70deg C (I bought a washing machine that does variable temp - love it!) using a non-bio powder.

I know it sounds a touch contrary but it's a fine balance between trying to look after both DS and the environment!

"And I have never bought a box/pack of tissues - I use the loo roll or save napkins from cafes"

Is there that much difference environmentally?

As has already been pointed out, lots of trees are cut down to make loo roll, a massive percentage of what is sold, isn't unbleached, and because men use it as much as women do, no-one even thinks to call for it to be banned. Much less call for much more polluting things, like cars, to be banned.

Actually I do think that bleached and coloured loo roll should be banned, it's so vulgar. [Margot Leadbetter emoticon]

Definitely think this is more of a feminist issue than it is an environmental one. I suspect we will see 100% biodegradable disposables long before we see nappies changed by men as normal as is currently the case for women.

I started off with reusables and ditched them quite quickly. I had twins. The washing machine was going twice a day in my house anyway. Coping with more laundry on top of that would have been over-burdensome.

I did feel guilty about the landfill aspect, but not enough to change back to reusables. For the first four months I never managed to get more than 45 mins of sleep in one go due to the demands of breast-feeding, expressing, winding, changing, etc. No way was I sacrificing that much-needed sleep! If I had, I might have saved the environment a bit but the social cost would have been huge - I'd have collapsed and ended up with my children in care.

Actually I think men might use more loo roll than women (on the occasions when they use it) - it would be an interesting survey but probably not one I would be keen to actually carry out
I guess there is less packaging on loo roll, and most people would leave their napkins to be thrown away, rather than saving them to use on their nose! It is a sign that I do not use tissues 'frivolously' for wiping things which a cloth could do. Never bought babywipes either, and use v little kitchen towel. Have had some of my kitchen cloths for about ten years and still washing and using them!
I am coming agree with the view that this is no more a feminist issue than any other aspect of parenting, and that individual women who have a partner should try to ensure they are happy with whatever division of labour suits their partnership best. Environmental issues are not always feminist issues and I don't think it would be wrong, for example, for a non-driving woman to comment on the restriction/penalising of cars driving around with no passengers, which are more likely to be driven by men. That is much more a criticism of the practice, which has an environmental impact on all of us, than it is a criticism of men.