Cloth Bums

Cloth Bums Choose the right nappies for your little one

What's actually involved?

Cloth nappies are extremely simple these days, in fact some are as easy as disposables to use. Different cloth nappies may vary slightly, but the general principles are the same. Long gone are the days of messy soaking, or having to boil wash you nappies, the sweaty plastic pants are most definitely no more, cloth nappies really are not what they used to be.

When changing my baby I simply put my used nappy in a bucket (rather than a bin) I have a mesh which sits in side my bucket and every 3 or so days when my bucket is full I simply remove the mesh from my bucket put the whole lot (including the mesh) in to my washing machine, wash at 40 degrees, adding a sanitiser to my non biological washing powder,

It couldn’t be simpler!

There are so many reasons to opt for cloth. They are environmentally friendly and they save me a small fortune. I personally feel they must be far more comfortable for my baby to wear. I mean ask yourself this… If you had to go out and buy yourself a new pair of pants, would you choose some thing made from cotton, or would you go for something made from paper and plastic with a chemical gel inside? There isn’t really a choice is there?

Money Savings

It is substantially cheaper to use washable nappies than disposables even when taking into account the extra use of your washing machine.

The amount you can save may vary and depends on several factors:

· What type of nappy you opt for – Nappies vary in price depending on what type you choose.

· Whether or not you use them for more than one child.

· Whether or not you choose to use a tumble dryer.

In general, I think it would be fair to say that you could save around £600 by using reusable nappies – and even more if you then go on to use them for a second child as you don’t have your initial outlay.

Useful Links
	Wiltshire Wildlife Trust Swindon Real Nappy Network

Nappy Facts

Each baby will need between 4500 to 6000 nappies from birth to potty training. This equates to 2.5 tonnes of rubbish if the baby is wearing disposable nappies.

8 Million disposable nappies are thrown away each day in the UK alone.

Many areas in Wiltshire have already converted to fortnightly bin collections, which effectively means that you could have well over 100 used nappies sitting in your bin when it comes to collection day.

Four and a half trees are destroyed to keep one baby in disposables for 30 months.

1 cup of crude oil goes in to make one disposable nappy.

It is estimated that disposable nappies can take anything up to 500 years to decompose, so it is entirely possible that every disposable nappy there ever was is still sitting in landfill.