Cloth Nappies
Advocates of Cloth nappies are focusing on the large financial benefit, a saving of $2500 per child of using cloth nappies versus disposable nappies.
The average child will need between 4000 to 6000 disposable nappies until toilet trained.
As well as the financial benefits of using Cloth nappies, mothers are increasingly attracted by the environmental benefits.
One cup of crude oil is used to make each disposable nappy.
Disposable nappies contain chlorine to make them white.
Four and a half trees are cut down to keep one baby in nappies for thirty months
The carbon footprint of a baby in disposable nappies is 62 kilos of CO2 more than a baby using cloth nappies.
In the UK, eight million nappies are thrown away every day of the year, and each nappy takes between 200 to 500 years to degrade.
The UK has just opened its first nappy recycling plant in Birmingham. The multi million pound plant is capable of processing 30,000 tonnes of nappies every year. Currently around 800,000 tonnes of used nappies finds its way into landfill in the UK – which is enough to fill Wembley Stadium eight times over.
So why is it that with such a compelling financial saving and environment argument, that everyone isn't switching to real nappies over disposable nappies.
It seems that cloth nappies have had an image crisis, with people associating them safety pins and with steaming dirty buckets of nappies.
Sue from www.goodpregnancyguide.com explains how out of date this memory is, "Modern cloth nappies don't use safety pins and there is no need to soak them. Modern washing machines easily handle a week's worth of cloth nappies at a 40 degree wash. A waterproof cover is used over the cloth nappy to help them fit snugly."
www.goodpregnancyguide.com has just launched a new forum for women who want to share their ideas and experiences of using cloth nappies and other ways of saving money with other women and have been looking for a way to easily do this.
For more information on using cloth nappies, cleaning cloth nappies, and other pregnancy subjects visit http://www.goodpregnancyguide.com
