A Waste Prevention Plan for England will include nappies, right?

Some of you will know that the government is currently consulting over a Waste Prevention Plan for England. From what we've heard so far nappies will not be mentioned. Defra's argument for not mentioning disposable nappy waste, even though it is 3% of the household waste stream and costs an awful lot of money is that
a the type of nappy you use should be a personal choice (who's calling for a ban of disposable nappies?) and
b washable nappies CAN be as bad for the environment as disposables if people boil, iron and tumble dry them.

So we think these are ridiculous excuses. People who use washables generally do it to be green and so have eco washing routines. At Real Nappies for London we know this because we ask people how they wash their nappies and they tell us. In fact because of the way they wash them they have approximately 40% lower carbon impacts than single use nappies and are zero waste.

Anyway it's pretty clear the way things are going. Central Government is not going to say anything about reducing disposable nappy waste in the Waste Prevention Plan for England due to be out by the end of this year. That means local authorities need to do all they can to incentivise the use of real nappies in their borough to ensure the cost of sending disposable nappy waste (including landfill tax), is brought down. We have some standard letters you can use to send to your local MP and local councillor to ask them to support Real Nappies for London. You can find a link in the bottom right hand corner under News here.