Ethical Consumer

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? 

Microfibre nappies work just as well as any other fibre. They are very absorbent without being too bulky - think of microfibre cleaning cloths that soak up loads of liquid. There should be no problems with leakage - in fact leakage depends on the cover or wrap, not on the type of nappy. There are some cheap microfibre nappies out there and there are some more expensive ones - it all depends on the brand. Compared to disposables of course they are significantly cheaper!

I used microfibre for my little girl (one of the larger brands on the market), but she was a very heavy wetter and found that it didn't hold enough liquid, so I don't find it suitable for heavy wetters (I would barely get 1 to 1 1/2 hours out of a nappy, if I didn't change on time it would leak right through, and a four layer pad of microfibre nearly took as long as a bamboo nappy to dry, due to it's thickness.