Cloth Nappies

Cloth nappies vs disposables. This has been an argument going around since they invented the disposable nappy....
which is better for baby, the wallet or the environment?

Cloth nappies have come a long way from the flat white boring towelling nappy, with pins and plastic pants that leaked and produced horrible nappy rash. A lot of mothers choose disposables because they think the only other option is to learn origami and use those white flat nappies. I certainly did!

But, as I was to discover, there is a whole world of brightly coloured, well fitting, leakproof funky cloth nappies!

There are various different styles, some even work from newborn to toilet training! making them very economical. With modern fabrics they can be virtually stay-dry on top and leakproof all on their own. Some styles come apart for super fast drying, some are designed to be as convenient as using a disposable. Did you know you are not meant to throw the poo away in a disposable nappy? no? neither do most people. You are meant to flush it down the toilet so that human waste does not end up in landfill. So if you have to do that with a disposable, they become not much more "convenient" than a cloth nappy!

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I'm not going to go into the whole how and why of cloth nappies, check out the links page for that. But I'll bring up a few points that you might like to consider.....

Disposable nappies account for around 50% of household garbage, which then goes into our already overflowing landfil.
It's actually illegal in many places to put human waste into household garbage, which includes poo in nappies. (Most disposable packaging actually tells you to remove solids into the toilet, but hardly anyone does). This introduces human waste into the ground which can leech into the water table...yyerrrgh!
More than 100 viruses can live in human poo... and for around 2 weeks.... so the smelly poo laden nappies in landfill can be a risk for spreading viruses to sanitation workers etc.
Studies into the environmental impact are not accurate - generally they don't take the water/waste used in disposables production, and the modern nappy washing methods into consideration where there is no use of sanitisers (nor the fact that many cloth nappy users use second hand nappies and use the same for subsequent children - thus reducing the environmental impact of them.
The use of absorbent crystals found in disposable nappies is not fully researched. Therefore the health risks of using these crystals is unknown. The crystals were banned from use in tampons, and they are said to be an irritant to mucous membranes. As many parents who have used these disposables will attest to, these crystals often work their way out and onto the child's bottom.. we don't know what effect this will have long term.
Disposables contain other nasty things like Tributyl tin and dioxins... and one study has shown exposure to chemicals found in disposables can cause lab rats to develop asthma-like symptoms
The use of absorbent nappies means that many disposable-clad children are left in nappies far longer than is hygenic, as the parents are made believe that this is acceptable.
Using disaposables can cost over $2,000 a year, per child! (and disposable clad children are often toilet trained later, so could be in nappies 3-4 years).
With cloth you can often get hand-me-down or second hand nappies to start with, and reuse them for several children.