Council’s war on disposable nappies
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Sophie [11 months] and Michelle Kirchmajer have been using cloth nappies since Sophie’s birth.
The program was provided to parents in pre-natal classes at Wollongong Hospital and to those attending baby health clinics with the aim of raising awareness of the benefits of cloth nappies.
1n 2017/2018 Council’s Environmental Education Officers held workshops with parents prior to the birth of their child. More than 300 households took part in the workshops that covered the use of cloth nappies for children in their first years.
Manager Environmental Strategy & Planning [Acting] David Green said survey results from the workshops shows that more than 90 per cent of parents would use cloth nappies after attending a workshop.
“There are many benefits for parents to use reusable cloth nappies. Reusables can save a family about $3,500 from birth to when the child is toilet trained. This cost saving increases if you have more than one child,” Mr Green said.
“The average baby uses 6,000 disposable nappies by the time they are toilet trained. Technology has improved since the day of white terry towelling squares and the cloth nappies available nowadays are functional, easy to use and come in many designs. “Disposable nappies have a long life in landfill and each year Australians place about 450,000 tonnes of disposable nappies in landfill sites,” Mr Green said.
“Disposable nappies are toxic and contain a lot of waste which generates the greenhouse gas methane while in landfill. On average each family with a young baby would use six disposable nappies every day. This has a large impact on our landfill site at Whytes Gully. If we can reduce the amount of material such as disposable nappies going to landfill, we will greatly increase the lifespan of our only landfill site in the city.
“By reducing people’s use of disposables we also reduce the amount of energy to create the plastics and reduce the amount of plantation timber used to create the fluffy fill in disposable nappies.”
About 3.75 million disposable nappies are used each day in Australia and New Zealand and it takes about one cup of crude oil to make each nappy. These nappies eventually go to landfill sites, with disposable nappies estimated to take up to 150 years to break down. For more information on how to avoid plastics and how to adjust to the removal of single use plastic bags, visits council’s Sustainable Living website
From the Cloth Nappy Workshops survey
Before the session 58% of attendees said they might / would use cloth. After the session 96% said they might / would use cloth nappies. Before the workshop session 40% said they would not use cloth nappies. After the session 2 per cent said they would not use cloth nappies.If you’d like to know more about the project, you can contact Council’s Customer Service Team on (02) 4227 7111 or email the Green Team.
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