Up to our knees in disposable nappies

While British parents are being offered a nappy subsidy in a bid to wean them off the disposable variety, similar schemes don't appear to be on the horizon in this country.

Eleven local councils in Britain are paying parents the equivalent of $150 to $200 towards the cost of buying cloth nappies or paying for a laundry service, in an effort to persuade them to switch to reusable nappies.

A new waste levy in Britain prompted the subsidy scheme.

An estimated three billion disposable nappies are dumped in British landfills every year.

Britain's Independent newspaper reported that previous attempts to wean parents off disposables had been spectacularly unsuccessful. Only 10 per cent use the cloth variety.

New Zealand anti-disposables campaigns by reusable nappy providers, the Green Party and recycling organisations have also been less than successful.

The Auckland Regional Council is running a promotion offering a 10 per cent discount on reusables from a Grey Lynn store to households who have signed up to its environmentally-friendly Big Clean Up campaign. Greater Wellington Council has no plans for anything similar.

Liz Mole, owner of nappy supplier Real Nappies, said that was no surprise.

"We have approached councils, and while individuals seem to be quite keen, somewhere up the line someone else says 'no, it's not going to catch on'."

Her products are in 25 stores in New Zealand and the company's laundry service costs between $20.99 and $24.99 per baby or toddler per week.

Zero Waste spokesperson Kim Knight said the issue of disposables was a "conundrum".

"Even people on the lowest incomes use disposable nappies all the time - what we lack is a Government that will force people to act in a certain way."

A report in Consumer magazine last year found that reuseable nappies were cheaper than disposables but upfront costs for the 20 to 30 nappies needed might be daunting for some.

And it found disposables, which range in price from around 32c to 60c per nappy, won hands down over reusables for convenience.

Ms Knight said disposables that could be processed into organic waste were probably the way of the future.


Nappies - the sticky facts

* Around 10 million disposable nappies are used in New Zealand every week.
* It takes one cup of crude oil to make the plastic on each disposable nappy.
* Each child will use around 5500 disposables.
* In households with one baby, disposables make up 50 per cent of total household waste.

Source: Zero Waste NZ Trust