ok so we all see being green as different. some people think eating local meat is green where as others think eating meat is not green
some recycle lots and others just use less stuff ect ect
i have had enough of my cotton tots bots , i have used them for 3 children and have loved them but this summer they are just not getting dry. i am am looking at some pockey style nappies instead. i have just ordered the tots bots one and also a charlie banana one. i love the idea of the charlie banana being able to adjust the leg elastic as no other nappies have this other than using a shaped nappy for getting really good leg hole size. but they have arrived and i am really pleased so far not put thme on the baby yet , but i have just looked at the pacaging and they are made in china. i cant see how using a washable nappy made in china is eco friendly. so fingers crossed the tots bots work as they are still made in the uk.
so how eco friendly is you nappy stash ??
I think mine is very green. I used all cotton tots for Len and Fliss and have replaced them with almost all second (or third!) hand ones for Miri. Miri’s only new ones were made by a WAHM.
Hmm, tricky one. Ours are Tots Bots cottontots, with a few bamboos we’ve inherited and various wraps, some Tots Bots but some Motherease (Canada). Nothing’s perfect, I guess. I always wonder how green the very notion of cloth is when you factor in washing, detergent and some people using driers and so on. You can only do your best, really.
Your best eco option for new would be buying organic cotton nappies made in the UK, and wool wraps. Your next option down would be UK made PUL or fleece wraps, or non-organic cotton, or bamboo. Unbleached is better. If I had to buy new and my top priority was the environment, I’d buy organic terries and UK made wool shorts.
If you buy second hand, I don’t think it matters what they’re made from as far as the environment goes.
My pocket nappies were made in the UK but by a big(ish) brand. The whole nappy has to be washed each time which isn’t very green, but on the other hand they line dry very well and dry on the airer inside quickly too, and we use locally produced eco liquid (refill bottles) to wash. We wash on cold usually, on a cycle that takes an hour. My nappies have been used over seven years and four children (plus being lent to two friends in between my babies)!
I think if you use cloth nappies on more than one child they *must* be greener than sticking literally thousands of disposable nappies in landfill where the plastic just won’t break down. Our stash has been through many children - some through 7 or more, all through at least three. The only new ones we bought were bambinex, which I *think* are British, and little lambs which are welsh. They all went through Grace, a friend’s baby and now Jude, and the size ones have been put away for future use or selling/passing on. We have a vast quantity of hand-me-downs and bought secondhand ones which have done those three and at least one other baby - most of my size 2 stash came from a friend who used them on her four children, and some came from another friend who used the same nappies on her two children that she and her brother had used on them! When any of them are totally beyond use as nappies I plan to cut them up for cleaning cloths.
I simply can’t believe that nappies which are used on so many kids can possibly be worse than disposables, regardless of where they are shipped from once in their lives. In fact the only study which showed that cloth was only marginally better environmentally than disposables (still better though…), was completely debunked because it looked at them being used on only one child, being washed at 90c, tumble dried and *ironed* (because we all have time to iron nappies!)!
Personally, I would still avoid nappies made in China because of the human rights abuses, but that has little to do with th environmental impact.
i used some terry towelling squares that my mum used on me my sister and brother,so 30ish years old and i used them on 4 kiddies. i think thats fairly environmently friendly and they’re still in good condition i think it’s the amount of times you use them that makes them green rather than where they come from. It would be nice though to get them made in the country you live in xx
I think its very tricky and there are no easy answers. There are a lot of factors. Is it more eco friendly to use UK made nappies but made from materials grown and shipped from overseas-tbh, given that China does actually grow cotton, is it perhaps more eco friendly to make the nappies there and then ship them? Is cotton (intensively sprayed), washed repeatedly using hot water and detergents, more eco friendly than, say, a highly eco disposable made using waste paper and then composted? There just are not easy answers here, or not ones I’ve found. Angie, that study you mentioned came out when my kids were in (cloth!) nappies and I remember being highly outraged because they’d made loads of stupid assumptions about cloth nappy users, the only thing is, to be fair, iirc they also used highly non-eco nappies as a comparator. I don’t think there are any really simple answers here, tbh, and its further messed up because there are no independent studies, really, everything is funded by one side or another or claims made to sell stuff.
oh eta I think British reared wool shorties are a pretty safe bet environmentally, wool has, iirc the lowest carbon footprint of all fibres and it could easily have carbon miles in the tens if you sourced cleverly.
Yeah you’ve got to do eat u think is best.I’ve got tots bots a few wahms ans organic motherease,also we have some cheaper pockets but these are being used over and the green to us is not having the chemicals in them as eco disposables are a higher price than normal disposables.I don’t over wash ours and use bamboo inserts and try not to tumble dry,but this is better for mgy kids I feel x x
I’d be really interested in finding out what proportion of the market is made up of Eco-sposies. I would guess at it being small, if not statistically insignificant - I know that all my “straight” friend’s have never even heard of them - it’s a straight choice between huggies or pampers, and my crunchy friend’s either use cloth, or a mix of cloth and Eco-sposies, usually at night or on holiday. If that’s the case, I think a study looking at sensible use of cloth - more than one child, washing at a lower temp, airdrying etc, which is the way most people use cloth, vs big brand disposable nappies which are what the majority of disposable users use, would be the fairest comparison.
Interesting thread. I have felt for ages that nappies made in China , Australia, USA, Canada are really not eco-friendly for people living in UK, and actually have a shop policy that I won’t either sell nappies made further away than Europe, or ship nappies to countries outside Europe. At first I had a lot of negative comments about this policy, some people saying that the fabrics aren’t made in Europe anyway, and it was more eco-frienldly to make the nappies where the fabric is made, as that way, the cut out scraps don’t need to be shipped. However, what these people failed to realize is that in many cases the fabric is imported to China, Australia or wherever, in the first place, and then made into nappies (under heaven knows what conditions) and re-shipped as nappies to UK. OK, bamboo fibre may be made in China, but China is one BIIIIIG country, so even for Chinese bamboo nappies made with Chinese bamboo, the fabric is still being transported vast distances twice . Similarly nappies made in the States and Canada, may be made with cotton made in the states, but again, it could be transported thousands of miles to the nappy manufacturersthemselves. Australian nappies may be using cotton imported to Australia from eg. India and then shipped back to UK. It just doesn’t make sense. At least nappies made in Europe only have to be transported small distances once they have been made, and the fabric with which they are made may in fact travel fewer miles than eg, Chinese bamboo nappies made with Chinese Bamboo, or US made nappies, made with US cotton.
So I continue my policy, as at least I know that the nappies I sell are good quality, made under good conditions, from manufacturers which by law have to pay their workers a fair wage.
