What is an eco-nappy?

The truth about eco-disposables

More and more parents are thinking about their impact on the environment and are proudly purchasing eco-disposables for their babies thinking that they are better for the planet, but are they really? Here at TotsBots, we are of the opinion that eco disposables are a bit of an oxymoron really. How can you call a man made item eco friendly when they are designed to be used once and thrown in the bin, thousands of them too that will ultimately still end up incinerated or buried in landfill just like a bog-standard disposable.  It’s a cost to you and the environment and our kids’ futures that doesn’t tally up.

Let’s take a look behind the marketing of these so-called ‘eco-disposables’.

There are various brands of eco-disposables on the shelves, enticing eco-conscious parents, with a ‘green’ product which is supposedly better for our planet with all the convenience of a disposable…and at a premium cost we may add. It’s worth noting that these claims are mainly to do with the materials that the nappy is made from…organic cotton, chlorine-free pulp and 100% biodegradable bamboo fibres to name a few, but nothing is really said about what happens to most of them when they get to landfill, because it’s a well-known documented fact that very little biodegrades in landfill. We are of the opinion this is nothing short of greenwashing and it is misleading parents everywhere.

Also, did you know that eco-disposables are the single biggest contaminant of domestic recycling? Well-intentioned parents are putting them in the recycling bin with the rinsed-out tins and plastic bottles. This results in sorted waste that would have previously been sent off for processing, going to landfill instead! No matter what it says on the packaging, eco-disposable nappies cannot be composted in a domestic environment either, so, unless parents fancy storing their little cherubs’ poopy nappies for a week and then arranging an uplift to an industrial composter then they’re paying only for a vision, and not getting to the root of the problem; mass overconsumption of disposable products which will fester in landfill for thousands of years regardless of whether they are labelled eco or not.

At TotsBots, we feel so passionately about the marketing messages that are being posed by eco disposable manufacturers that we contacted our local MP, David Linden, who has since worked tirelessly to push the Nappy Bill through parliament. This bill will stop manufacturers making false claims that can mislead parents to pay more for a product that they believe is better for the environment when in actual fact it’s not.

The solution to being ‘eco’ when it comes to changing your baby’s bum, is to reduce and reuse. Using just one reusable nappy a day can save 365 disposables from going to landfill per year, per baby! You can be confident that reusable nappies are still 40% better for the environment than disposables even taking washing into consideration thanks to the LCA report, plus modern cloth nappies are so easy to use.

If you want to wrap your baby’s bum with a genuinely eco-friendly nappy, pop on over to our web store and pick up a discounted trial kit.