By Giulia Busellato
If you ask your grandparents about nappies they will probably talk about piles of smelly rags that needed boiling daily and incidents with safety pins. Disposable nappies have been around since 1948 when Johnson & Johnson introduced them to American households. Now millennials families are turning to reusable. Why?
According to What Price? a family would spend around £800 in the first two years, using up to 12 nappies a day in the first 4 months. Disposable nappies are also harming to the environment: 25% are made of plastic and billions end up in landfills. The BBC has reported that it takes from 200 to 500 years to decompose and they represent 2-3% of household waste.
What’s all this hype about cloth nappies? Well, in a few words they save money and reduce waste.
By the time toddlers are 2 and a half if one disposable nappy is replaced by a cloth one, families would save around 900 nappies from going to waste.
Bienentrinkwasser writes on Mumsnet: “I’ve had a positive experience using reusables with my son. He’s now 19 months and we have spent less than £400 on nappies - many secondhand and all ethically produced brands, which will last until he is potty trained.
"We are due our second child in November and they will use the same nappies again. Our son has never had nappy rash despite having very sensitive skin and quite a bad eczema which I think is likely due to the reusables.”
The main turn down for new parents is the upfront cost for reusables. The average price for a birth to potty nappies kit is around £220-300. However, some councils in Britain now offers incentives up to £55 to help families buying cloth nappies. On the long run, reusable nappies turn out to be way cheaper, saving a family between £200 to £500 in the first few years. To decrease the initial cost, many parents decide to buy second hand or making their own.
FriedasCarLoad writes on Mumsnet: “I'm so glad we went for disposables. We've saved a fortune and avoided so much damage to the environment. We plan to reuse them for our baby (on the way) and subsequent children, and after that to give away the ones we were given and keep the terries for cleaning.”
Another overwhelming factor is the time spent researching the best fit for your baby. There's a huge number of models and designs out there: some come with velcros, others with poppers or elastic bands. If you want to know more, read this article.
If you are worried about bacteria, reusable diapers companies such as TotsBots suggest washing the nappies at 60C with a gentle soap. Hanging them to dry in the sun will further help to sanitise them. Parents don’t need to worry about clogged washing machine because breastfed newborn poo is water-soluble.
Another reason why reusable nappies are becoming more popular is preventing rashes due to the lack of chemicals, dyes and plastic. In fact, the BBC has reported that Anses, France National health agency, has found levels of dangerous chemicals over the safety threshold in a different number of single-use nappy brands. Some of these chemicals, such as dioxins, furans and glyphosate, are classified by WHO as “probably carcinogenic”.
Are you considering to try reusable nappies? Take our poll here!
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