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Nappy rush to go green

Marie Burchill
24/ 4/2008

PARENTS across south Manchester are leading the rush to bin disposable nappies.

Environmentally-conscious mums and dads have become leading lights in the nappy movement – which is seeing parents ditch disposables in favour of the traditional-style cotton ones. Parents from south Manchester make up half of the 540 families who have signed up to receive the cotton nappies from Manchester City Council.

The shift back to cotton is becoming an increasingly popular path for many parents, as part of a determined effort to reduce the number of disposable plastic nappies being sent to landfill sites.

Under the scheme, parents receive a delivery of clean nappies every week, while the dirty ones are sent off to be laundered. They are also provided with a plastic container to hygienically store the dirty nappies until they are collected.

Chorlton mum Anna Jordan, 35, has been using cotton nappies for the last two-and-a-half years and is a staunch supporter of the scheme.

Mrs Jordan, of Salisbury Road, said: "My reason for choosing cotton nappies is simple, I wanted to do something good for the environment, and using disposable nappies generates so much extra landfill.

"I first started using cotton nappies when I had my first child, Myrtle. I was so impressed with how good they were that I just didn’t want to go back to disposable nappies.

"People worry that cotton nappies are difficult to use and cause nappy rash, but I haven’t had any problems like that with either of my children. My daughter Myrtle used them and I’m now using them on my nine-month-old son, Ernest.

Anna – who works as a GP in Denton – receives a delivery of 40 cotton nappies every Thursday for her son Ernest. She keeps the dirty nappies in a collection container outside her house throughout the week and they are then collected to be laundered when the new ones are dropped off.

The environmentally -friendly service costs £9-a-week, while a pack of 30 Huggies disposable nappies cost £7.99.

Almost 2.4 billion disposable nappies are produced every year, which are then collected by local authorities and sent to landfill sites. They take between 200 and 500 years to decompose.

The Waste Watch organisation has released figures that reveal one million tonnes of nappies are thrown away every year. Each child is thought to use 5,850 nappies – which weighs as much as an average family car.

Councillor Eddy Newman, executive member of neighbourhood services at Manchester City Council, said: "We are encouraging parents to use this service that promotes the use of real nappies in order to reduce the huge amounts of plastic nappies that are sent to landfill sites every year. Parents have been surprised by how easy it is to use real nappies."

The council is running a free month-long trial to parents within the city who would like to try out the service for a refundable £30. Call 954 9000.