Ethical Consumer Nappies Research

Biodegradable and compostable - does this work in practice?

Rob Harrison — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 23:39:32 GMT

I'm beginning to get to grips with various attempts to address the environmental impact of nappy use. Biodegradable seems to be one idea with a small range of disposable brands making claims to be so. So far it seems to be true that:

Only nappies without the super-absorbant gels (sodium polyacrylate) may be biodegradable

Conditions in mainstream landfill are such that even biodegradable/compostable nappies will not break down

Therefore these are only an environmental option if you compost them yourselves.

Does anyone have any experience of sucessfully composting nappies? If so, did it not require a large volume of other waste to mix with it? Did it work in the winter?

Perhaps some of the statements above are not wholly correct?

Beginning the research - brands and subjects

Rob Harrison — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 00:39:12 GMT

Hi early stage Forum Community. I'm Rob, and I'm leading the research for Ethical Consumer's next Buyers Guide to Nappies which is due to appear in the March April 2010 issue of the magazine (EC124). It will be rolled out to the free area of the website around August 2010.

Our readers have made important contributions to the nappies debate in the past, and we reckoned that this subject would be a good one to test out the idea of research forums - whereby ordinary consumers and specialists contribute ideas to our research before it is published. Our deadline for the first draft of the report is January 15th...so don't hold back if you've something to say.

At the end of this post I've put in our draft brand list. This covers the brands that are likely to appear on our ranking and ethiscore tables. Make a post to the forum if you think there are others I've left out - or ones that shouldn't be in. Working on the brand list is one of the first things we do so that we can contact manufacturers to ask for replies to policy questions in time for the copy deadline.

Before then, I'll just quickly list some of the key topics I think we might cover in the report. Is bamboo really as sustainable a material as it is suggested? How compostible are nappies in the right condistions. How practical are re-usuables in difficult circumstances - such as on the train, at the nursery or childminders, and overnight? How should a price comparison work to be fair to lifetime of usage for reusables?

More ideas of subjects to cover very welcome at this stage...as well as answers to these questions.
We are also looking for some parents to share their experiences of trying to use ethical nappies (about 200 words maximum - for the print editions).

Current draft brand list:
RE-USABLES
Mother-ease
Totsbots
Bambinex
Pop-in
BumGenius
Orgainc Terry squares
Diddy Diapers
Little Lamb
Mothercare Smart

DISPOSABLES
Bambo Nature
Nature Boy/Girl
Moltex Oko
Huggies
Boots
Pampers
Mothercare
Tesco
Sainsbury
Asda

Our most recent report before this one is at:
www.ethicalconsumer.org/FreeBuyersGuides/babychild/nappies.aspx

Microfibre re-usable nappies - does anyone use these?

Rob Harrison — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 12:54:33 GMT

Looking at a couple of the posts in the 'Beginning the research' topic, it appears that drying is a big practical issue for parents who use re-usable nappies.

Looking at the lifecycle analysis stuff, it also looks pretty crucial how drying takes place for significant carbon impact reductions.

Microfibre re-usable nappies weren't on the market when I had small children, but they look like a good solution to some of these issues. Does anyone use these now? How do they perform for absorbancy/leaking/price?

Market shares for re-usables?

Rob Harrison — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 12:59:38 GMT

Our usual source for market research data is the excellent Mintel. According to a 2008 UK survey, it said that 10% of parents use re-usables, but only 2% use them exclusively. In a different bit of the document it said that 95% of parents use disposables.

I have two questions. Does anyone have different figures, or want to challenge these? Secondly, what is going on with the missing 3%?