Tossing up whether to go disposable nappies or reusable cloth nappies?
There are so many decisions to make as new parents, especially when considering the long term impacts of the items we consume on the environment. Your nappy (or diaper) choice is a huge one - it is estimated that every child will go through 6,000 disposable nappies in their childhood …. Now that’s a lot of landfill! And that’s even before taking into account wipes and packaging.
For our family, making the switch to reusable modern Cloth Nappies was easy and here are some reasons why.
The Cost
The estimated cost in Australia for a child’s disposable nappy load is between $1,800 - $3,000+ for each child. Whilst the initial outlay of a set of Cloth Nappies can seem high, the cost of a full set of reusable nappies will be less than half of the lifetime cost of disposables. Better yet - the saving increases with every child if you continue to reuse the same set.
Council Rebate Schemes
Environmental Benefits
With an estimated 3.75 million disposable nappies hitting landfill every day in Australia and New Zealand, it is staggering to consider that these will take up to 150 years to break down. Not only this, but each disposable nappy takes about one cup of crude oil to produce.
By choosing Cloth Nappies you play a part in significantly reducing this volume, and also have the ability to choose products that are more responsibly made with eco friendly materials. Most reusable nappies are free from harmful chemicals and plastics - and when we were creating Pekpi we knew we wanted to take this one step further and use Repreve®, not only as it is free from harmful chemicals but because it is made from 100% recycled plastic bottles saved from waterways and landfill. By using Repreve® each Pekpi Cloth Nappy saves around 6 Plastic Bottles have been saved from Landfill, Waterways and our Oceans.
Energy and Water Consumption
We often hear, but doesn’t washing cloth nappies use a lot of energy and water? Well, a recent study by the Australian Nappy Association set the record straight and found that reusable nappies required a quarter less energy consumption per infant, per year (Cloth - 0.3 - 0.5GJ vs Disposables 1.2-2.5Gj). Water consumption is marginally higher due to the demands of washing Cloth Nappies (Cloth -19-32² vs Disposables 14-28²) but there are ways to reduce this.
How to reduce energy and water consumption even further with Cloth Nappies:
- To save water follow our washing guidelines for short and long washing cycles, and dry pail cloth nappies rather than soaking
- If you can, switch to a front loading machine rather than top as it requires less water per cycle
- Line dry in the sun vs using a dryer wherever possible