The great debate surrounding nappies focuses on whether its better to use disposable ones or re-usable ones.

Here Superdads offers you their opinion.

There is in our opinion no argument about which type of nappy is most convenient – disposable nappies win this title hands down. Having a nappy that you can throw onto your child and then throw away without fuss is brilliant as it requires little thought and organization making life easy. Other factors need to be considered in the debate though such as the environment and already there are groups putting pressure on parents to use re-usable nappies but this may prove to be unfounded pressure, as you will see.

So how do the environmental effects of using disposable v re-usable nappies compare?

Parents have been seeking the answer to this question for quite some time and here we will try and help you understand the answer.

Disposable nappies are the largest single-item contributor to our landfills whilst reusable ones require regular hot washes which uses high levels of energy. Still it was thought that landfill issue is of greater concern than the energy one but that was until recently.

An apparently thorough study carried out by an advisory board to the UK Environment Agency in 2005 drew the conclusion that “cloth nappies had equal the impact of disposable nappies”. This was the conclusion upon studying both types of nappies throughout their whole product lifecycle to include materials, chemicals and energy consumed during production, usage and disposal. A further study in 2008 continued to support the idea that there is not much difference between the two types of nappy but the 2008 study did omit the impact of actual waste and focused on only energy usage. The 2008 report found that while disposable nappies used over 2½ years would have a global warming impact of 550kg of CO2 reusable nappies produced 570kg of CO2 on average. But if parents used tumble dryers and washed the reusable nappies at 90C, the impact could spiral to 993kg of CO2.

What this basically means is that if you minimize the energy that is needed in washing and drying re-usables may be better but only if you take an extreme approach to laundering. Whilst the main problem with disposable is the landfill space they take up and the gases they produce.

On balance neither option is vastly better than the other but this depends on your views of energy and waste. To this end even the government has stated that there are no future nappy studies to be carried out.

Even if the use of disposable nappies is still being discouraged by some I don’t think disposables should be, or for that matter ever will be, disregarded altogether.

What are the issues with disposable nappies?

• Environmental – They take a very long time to biodegrade and use materials from mostly non-renewable sources.
• Cost – they not only eat in to the family budget because of the expense but in addition the taxpayer is hit with a cost each time a nappy is disposed of. It costs approximately 10% of the price of each nappy to dispose of them.
• Health – The absorbant gel in disposables is sodium polyacrylate and it’s not known what effect, if any, this has when it’s in constant close contact with your child’s skin for several years.

The benefits of disposable nappies:

• They’re generally more absorbant than re-usable nappies and as such tend to be better for use during the night when the nappy isn’t going to be changed for an extended time period.
• When out and about disposable nappies are just more convenient. Some re-usable nappies are not too inconvenient to use but you still have the issues of carrying the dirty one around with you and if your on holiday you will need to do some washing whilst away.
• During times when you little one is experiencing more “business” than usual it may be hard to keep up with the washing so disposable may prove to be a god send.

Which Disposable nappies are the best?

The best nappies to use are down to personal opinion and depend on your baby. Nappies for babies are like jeans for adults – you’ll find a brand that seems to fit better and then stick with them. Generally it’s a pretty even split between the big two of Pampers and Huggies from the discussions we’ve had with parents although our Superdad preference is for Huggies as from our own fathering experiences we find that Huggies seem to fit a little better with our children.

It’s always worth trying out some of the cheaper nappies out there on the market though before making your choice as some of the “Own” brands nappies at the supermarkets are also very good.

Author: SuperDads

We’re here to make a difference. Superdads not only offers advice but we are her e to promote the importance of fatherhood. Many people are oblivious to the fact that Dads really do matter and this is something we’d like to put right.

Homepage