How to change nappies

How ‘bad’ is a disposable nappy? How ‘good’ is a reusable one? That depends on how we ask the question. Kay Sexton gets some convincing answers from the Isle of Man.

Mary O’Connor is a midwife at Noble’s Hospital. She’s also the woman behind a Manx nappy revolution. Starting with the hospital itself, she has successfully argued the case to move the entire community away from disposable nappies towards reusables, on health, environmental, social and economic grounds.

For Noble’s Hospital, the straight cost savings come out at around £14,000 a year with reusable nappies, O’Connor says. That includes a sharp reduction in incineration, which is more expensive for clinical waste than for other refuse. In laundry terms, 17 newborn nappies equal one sheet.

A new nappy design means baby waste can be flushed away on biodegradable inserts; the nappy is then soaked in water with tea tree oil, rather than a soaking solution, and the actual washing is undertaken locally – in a laundry that recycles the heat produced in the process.

“Once purchased, these nappies last a lifetime.”

In 2004 O’Connor’s initiative won a string of awards – the NHS Outstanding Sustainability Project, the British Journal of Midwifery Innovator of the Year, and a Green Apple Award for promoting the positive side of environmental endeavour. But the project did not stop at the Noble’s gates. The hospital encourages new mothers to explore reusable nappies as a system to take home.

Cheapness and simplicity of use have helped win over low-income families, and fears about how to fasten nappies – the big pin syndrome – are allayed by practical support from maternity and midwifery teams. Reusables, once purchased, can be washed at home and air dried, or laundered locally. The Department of Health and Social Security for the Isle of Man values the project so highly that it has changed the rules on benefits to allow families on income support to apply for a special grant to purchase real nappies.

A controversial recent Environment Agency report, giving reusables no better green credentials than disposables, gets short shrift from O’Connor. “I don’t know what the Environment Agency thinks is important, but here we think giving socially excluded families more money in their pockets and more choice about how to spend it, is as important as how much it costs to wash a nappy.” According to calculations published this year by WRAP, the government-backed Waste Resources Action Programme, reusable nappies can offer parents a cost saving of at least £100, rising to £300 if they are laundered at home.

There are real advantages to the local economy, too. Not just in keeping disposable nappies out of landfill. On a small island, transport is a major contributor to increased costs, and every pack of disposable nappies has to be imported from the mainland – which cranks up their environmental impact too.

The reusable nappy packs, on the other hand, are made up by local businesses, a deliberate purchasing decision to encourage economic development. It hasn’t all been simple. The hospital’s laundry service, for example, had been accustomed to boil-washing most articles for hygiene reasons, and still hasn’t fully mastered the lower temperature wash needed for the dual nappies, which have an absorbent inner layer and a waterproof outer one.

Too hot a wash causes the outer plastic coating to crack, leading to leaky nappies! But O’Connor is convinced the Isle of Man has got it right. “We’ve been doing this for two and a half years, and some of our mums are reusing the nappies on second children and planning to use them on third babies.

That’s something the Environment Agency hasn’t considered in its figures: once purchased, these nappies last a lifetime. As well as the grant for the nappies, we provide nutrition advice and other services to help people do the best for their children. It’s not just about what goes on a baby’s bottom, is it?”

DOWN IN THE DUMPS

Kay Sexton, former chief executive of AccountAbility, is a novelist and freelance writer.

21 July 2005

Kay Sexton