Information about nappies

• The impact on our environment
• For the health of your baby
• Tips on washing
• Cost Comparison
• What they are doing in England
• What you can do
• Where you can buy cloth nappies
• For more information

Cloth nappies are easy to use. Nappy liners and washing aids takes the mess out of cleaning, and the modern design of ready folded shaped nappies takes any chore out of cloth nappies.

The impact on our environment

• It takes one full cup of crude oil to make the plastic for each "disposable" nappy.
• 1.3 million trees a year are felled for NZ babies in disposable nappies.
  Disposable nappies use 3.5 times more energy, 8 times more non-renewable raw materials, 90 times more renewable materials than reusable nappies.
• It takes as much energy to produce one disposable nappy as it does to wash a cloth nappy 200 times.
• One baby in disposables will produce 2 tonnes of solid waste!

Disposable nappies take up to 500 years to decompose in landfill sites and can harbour up to 100 different types of virus, including live polio virus from vaccines.

For the health of your baby

• Chemicals and gels contained in the absorbent layer of "disposables" aren't subject to government controls or independent testing, and there is no labelling requirement on the packaging.
• There have been NO long-term studies into the effects on skin of constant exposure to the polyacralyte super absorbent gels found in most disposable nappies (gels that were deemed unsafe and removed from tampons in 1985).
• Cloth nappies do NOT cause nappy rash. Leaving a baby in a wet/soiled nappy for too long creates nappy rash!

Washing Tips

• Choose to use baking soda or white vinegar as a nappy soaker and add a drop of tea tree oil to sanitize. This costs around $40.00per year. The nappy also turns out MUCH whiter with just the baking soda in the wash and no nappy soak.Nappy soak also means potential increase of chemicals on baby's skin.
• Choose to use washing soaks and powder without phosphorus to reduce the impact on the environment.
• Choose to drypail, which is much easier, cheaper, less messy and means no chemicals.

Cost Comparison of Nappies

Infants typically wear nappies for 2