How eco is your baby’s bottom?

I went to the Eco Baby Expo and got some good information on chemical free cleaning, toys and nappies but also on natural baby cleaning, clothes, organic baby food and websites which sell ecofriendly baby stuff. So a lot to digest and I am still sorting out which is the good information. Will share my experience with you over the next few weeks.

Today it’s all about yet another biodegradable nappy.

I am not a huge fan of disposable nappies as a day to day solution for Little M’s smaller and bigger businesses. For several reasons: they are full of chemicals and therefore can cause nappy rash (Little M had his first rash after 10 months (!) while he had to wear disposables for a few days because Child Care refused to continue using cloth nappies) and they are a huge waste problem.

But there must be a green option for people who want to use disposables. By the way even we need disposable. There is just no way for us to use cloth nappies during the night or when the rainy days come and the cloth nappies just won’t dry.

So is a biodegradable nappy a good solution for us? I personally find the claim “biodegradable nappy” even worse than “disposable”. Why? Because here is no such thing as a 100% biodegradable nappy. “Biodegradable” makes you think: I am doing something good for the environment because the nappy is going to decompose. But in reality biodegradation in landfill doesn’t take place. You need mostly air for material to break down, but landfills are too tightly packed for most of the stuff to break down. So if biodegradation takes place at all it does so very slowly. And bad news for people who are actually doing a good thing and put them into their compost, the velcro tabs and inner lining still need to be taken out after the nappy broke down and even worse nappies with solid waste should not be added to your compost as this makes it unsafe for vegetation and can spread disease. Bummer!

Is there a green option to go with at all? Unfortunately all eco versions we tried didn’t work for us. Very disappointing, but I had to admit that they either leak or are not strong enough for the night.

Then I received a sample of Moltex Oeko at the Eco Baby Expo. A disposable but ecofriendly nappy. At first I thought it is yet another biodegradable nappy but after looking into it they try very hard to get as close as possible to being a real green alternative. Apart from being biodegradable, they also make sure the packing waste has as less impact as possible, use renewable resources in production, avoid chemicals as much as possibles and offset a lot of their carbon emissions due to transport.

If you want to know more about it go to www.ecodirect.com.au/eco-nappy.php

I tested the nappy and it worked fine over night. The downside is that they are quiet expensive. But as we save money with the cloth nappies I might give them a go.

Let me know if you tested them already and what you think of them.

~ Sustainable Mum ~