Partnerships to prevent as much nappy waste as we can

Last week Real Nappies for London attended an inspiring partnership roundtable discussion at St Thomas’ Hospital where Sustainability Managers from London Hospitals shared ideas with Local Authority Sustainability managers.

On the ‘Waste’ table the need to find an alternative to the incineration and landfill of nappy waste was seen as a high priority. The recycling of this waste is still some years away in London and a very expensive option so everyone was very keen to hear about Real Nappies for London and what we are doing to reduce London’s disposable nappy waste, especially as this something that is already happening and needs no additional infrastructure.

It doesn't have to be all or nothing

You know real nappy users have a secret. They like to keep it quiet but I’m going to share it with you. Most real nappy users also use disposables some of the time. In fact many real nappy users use a disposable at night. Typically around 6 months when babies are about to be weaned and they are on a liquid diet. They tend to drink a lot and that means they pee a lot. So real nappy users, not being quite the martyrs they’re supposed to be use a disposable because cloth just isn’t up to the job. Some will get through this with extra cloth and bamboo boosters but I can reveal, from extensive research that many do use disposables at night during this phase.

Also, many real nappy users will put a disposable on their baby when they are out and about-especially when they know it’s not going to be easy finding somewhere to change their baby. It’s true. So don’t be put off using real nappies because you think it’s all or nothing. Parenting is tough sometimes, well a lot of the time actually and you know what’s right for you and when. No one is judging you, or if they are they’re not worth worrying about.

Do what feels good for you and your baby. And if the time is right turn away from this screen and go look at your baby: smile, kiss, laugh, hug, sing, wink, flirt, blow raspberries and just get high on your beautiful baby. And if this sounds nuts and you don’t have these feelings - a lot of the time - then please go and speak to your GP or health visitor urgently. This is a special time and you should be enjoying your baby and if you’re not then there is help out there, there's no need to be ashamed, but you need to tell someone.

You may also like this post: Remember the Waste Hierarchy

Weekly bin collections back again – hurrah!

That should boost the economy. Good old Eric Pickles finding £250 million. This is urgent. We’ve got to get the nation shopping again and how can they shop with confidence and energy when they’ve got no way of throwing away rubbish once a week?

I'm pleased to see a sense of urgency about this. If people get out of the habit of shopping they may realise they prefer going to the park, going for a cycle ride or taking a stroll along the canal. That’s awful because then they’re not spending money and GDP won’t grow and we’ll never get out of recession. Hurrah for weekly bin collections.

Improving indoor air quality reduces risks to your baby's health

When you use real nappies you tend to become very sensitive to the smell of washing. There are a few rules about washing nappies – eg never use fabric softener, it stops them absorbing – but to a large extent you need to work out what works best with your washing machine, unless you handwash. You want the nappies to smell clean without smelling of detergent.

Once you become sensitive to the smell of conventional detergents and find out about the ingredients - basically waste from the petrochemical industry disguised by perfumes, you begin to understand the links between detergents and the rise of childhood asthma, eczema and glue ear.

You also start to question the use of air fresheners (please don't use the plug-in ones if you have a baby in the home), mainstream household cleaners and beauty products. Pat Thomas, health editor for the Ecologist has written extensively on this subject and she doesn’t just say what you shouldn’t use, she offers advice on practical, healthy, effective alternatives. Micro-fibre cloths are entering the mainstream and mean you can just clean the home with water. And if you can get a nappy clean you can get a micro-fibre cloth clean and vice versa.

Read the post on Detergents

The truth about detergents

One of the benefits of washing nappies, (especially in London with our wickedly hard water) is that you tend to learn a lot about detergent - and washing machines. Before I got involved with real nappies I knew nothing about detergent. I’d never actually looked at the ingredients on a detergent box or thought to wonder what's in it. However do a web search about washing nappies and you will soon find out about detergent residue. It’s that film of optical brighteners and whiteners that stay on the surface of clothes to make them look clean. Not a problem in the normal run of things unless you have sensitive skin and it causes eczema but on nappies it’s a problem – it can make the nappies stop absorbing (that’s what they need to do, right?) and stop the wrap being waterproof (its main job). It may also cause nappy rash. Here's some great advice on washing nappies from the USA.

If you're new to this, please don't let this put you off using real nappies. It’s really easy to prevent the detergent residue problem, once you know about it. If you’ve got detergent residue build up you put the nappies on a hot wash cycle with no detergent to get rid of it. After that you use less detergent, or an alternative, such as wash balls or soap nuts and you can prevent it.

You’re also likely to start doing spot cleaning. Now this is a great habit. Before kids you tend not to get grass stain and blackcurrant juice on your clothes. However, after kids, you need to know about this. Spot cleaning is simply doing a bit of treatment, preferably before the stain drys in, with a bit of hot water and soap and perhaps a nail brush if necessary. That way the stain comes out easily with the minimum amount of detergent at low temperature. You pick up this tip pretty quickly with nappies and it’s a basic skill of parenthood that means your children’s clothes stay looking good and can be passed on when your child grows out of them.

But there’s something else I need to warn you about if you’re going to become a real nappy user. Once you start looking at the ingredients on a detergent packet and you start looking into the effects of conventional fabric softeners you’re going start thinking seriously about not just what waste you put on the doorstep but also what you’re sending down the sewer. And in terms of your families health you’re also going to start thinking about indoor air quality. More on that next time.

Blog post on Improving Air Quality

Remember the waste hierarchy? Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

People can argue all they like about the relative environmental impacts of disposable vs washable nappies and they sure do www.guardian.co.uk but one thing is for certain; disposable nappies create a lot more waste. At Real Nappies for London we know it’s at least one large bin bag of rubbish per baby each week. It doesn’t really matter if disposable nappies are 10% smaller www.futurefriendly.co.uk when clean – it’s what’s in them when they’re in the trash that counts and that tends to be largely pee and poo.

So that’s why new processes are being developed to keep disposable nappy waste out of landfills and incinerators edie.net and www.dailymail.co.uk

But what’s also important about what nappy system you opt for is how that choice affects your attitude to waste. If you’re very green but just can’t get on with washable nappies it may not affect your attitude to waste. You will probably try harder to reduce it in other ways. But for most of us the effect of creating a large refuse sack of nappy waste each week is just demoralising. It makes you feel hopeless and other waste just seems minor by comparison.

On the other hand if you’re using real nappies most of the time you will be very happy with the fact that since you’ve had a baby your household waste has barely increased. This means you’re far more likely to feel inspired and look at other ways in which you can buy less packaging – such as buying refills of detergent to reduce the number of plastic bottles you throw away/recycle and think of ways to substitute single-use items for products you can use over and over again such as reusable wipes rather than disposable ones.

What’s more it’s very likely you’re going to pass on used baby clothes, equipment and toys www.nct.org.uk because thinning your bin is part of who you are and you take great pride in it. It’s probably going to make you buy less stuff too. You go to buy a plastic toy your child’s whining for and what you see is landfill. And then when friends and relatives ask what present they can buy for your child you ask for no plastic and if possible something wooden that improves with age and can get passed on, or something useful like a book or clothes.

And if you wash your baby’s nappies – even those of you who have used a laundry service end up washing some, even if it’s just the wet ones to stretch out the weekly supply – it’s highly likely that you are going to end up picking up environmentally friendly laundering habits. More of that in my next blog.
Of interest The truth about detergents and post on indoor air quality

Another problem with disposables

That comment about the water cycle in Leo Hickman's nappy debate is very thought provoking. So there's loads of water basically trapped in disposable nappies in landfills all over the World. Is that true? Isn't that a major issue?

Real Nappies in Vogue

I'm so excited about this: check it out
www.yummybums.co.uk

The true cost of disposables

Nocturnal Enuresis – ever heard of that? Well, I hadn’t until yesterday – although I probably should have. In my role as London’s real nappy ambassador an email popped into my inbox from ERIC – the charity for childhood incontinence. By the end of the morning I had read a 473 report published in October 2010 on bed wetting by NICE (the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) and had found out the enormous social and medical cost of this problem.

The NICE report advises how to treat sufferers – with drugs and alarms. Not one mention of cotton nappies did I find, or any indication that this problem is growing and perhaps we should try to understand why.

Then I looked at who had sat on the advisory board for this report. AHPMA’s name appeared close to the top of the list – as it would, as the list is in alphabetical order. For those of you with better things to think about AHPMA stands for Absorbent Hygiene Product Manufacturers Association ie the disposable nappy industry’s trade association.

So the people who are involved in this industry, that is estimated to be worth US $29 Billion by 2015, that could be causing the epidemic growth of this problem sit on a board, funded by me and other tax payers to analyse the problem and suggest treatments.

Now where I come from that’s called a conflict of interest. AHPMA is funded by experts at selling nappies and running a profitable industry, they are not objective health professionals.

Don’t get me wrong, I applaud what the industry is doing to raise awareness of this problem, making products such as pyjama nappies for 7-14 year olds available at the supermarkets and its contribution towards taking away the stigma from children and teenagers who suffer from nocturnal enuresis. But I can't help thinking that making bed-wetting a 'norm' brings them benefits; it helps them sell more products. All that money spent on websites that tell you how to potty and night train your child are clearly not purely altruistic - they are sophisticated marketing tools.

We need to get rid of this new myth - with some urgency - that has developed over the last 14 years, that children potty train themselves when they are ready and as parents we shouldn’t interfere. I’m not saying some children won’t. Some do; some children learn to read by themselves, but most need stimulation and intervention and the more expert the better.

I learnt how to potty train my second child from a friend. I turned to her for advice when I found out her child was out of nappies – both day and night – by 23 months, disposables I should add. She was a communications lecturer and the dad was a child psychologist. You probably can’t be more expert than that and what she told me worked! 

We have to recognise there are instances where the free market doesn’t work in the interests of consumers ie when companies make money out of our ignorance. It is possible your child will not develop night-time bladder control until 14, but highly unlikely. It's more likely though, if that is what you are led to expect.

Soap nuts

Has anyone used soap nuts for washing nappies?  I bought some at UK Aware and I've been using them for clothes and I love them but my babies are out of nappies now.  Please let us know.