OLDER WOMEN had said so for years but yesterday saw their advice turn into official policy as three local authorities in the southwest got behind a "real nappy" campaign in an effort to reduce the amount of disposable nappies brought to landfills
The first of a series of public awareness campaigns for the Clare, Limerick and Kerry regions over the next three days saw suppliers along with officials from the environment department Kerry County Council staff a stand at the Manor West Shopping Centre in Tralee .
Parents with children of 18 months or under were eligible for a draw that could see their switch to real nappies subsidised, and Kerry was hoping to encourage at least 10 families to convert, its environmental awareness officer said.
Older women told the campaigners "we knew they would come back".
"People over 60 think recycling is normal - then there's a gap where everything is accepted as disposable," Micheál Ó Coileáin, environmental officer with Kerry County Council, said. Younger people were changing that thinking and he was surprised at the interest among younger parents.
Disposable nappies often make up to 50 per cent of the waste of a one-child family. With most wheelie bin collections fortnightly now, parents found most of the waste was nappy and often "not very pleasant-smelling after two weeks in the bin," he said
A full kit of cotton nappies of various sizes costs about €300. Disposable nappies cost well over €1,000 for the duration of babyhood.
Even taking the washing needs of real nappies into account, from manufacture to use disposable nappies used 3.5 times as much energy, eight times as much non-renewable raw materials and 90 times as much renewable material and they produced up to 60 times as much solid waste as real nappies, Mr Ó Coileáin said.
The councils, including Limerick City and Limerick County Council, as well as Clare and Kerry, as part of an agreed regional waste management plan, have also posted links on their websites to real nappy suppliers.
Information posted on the Clare site advises that "modern parents" want to protect the environment for their children. In the UK 15 per cent of parents were now choosing environmentally-friendly nappies.
Today between 11am and 3.30pm the campaign will be at Dunnes Stores foyer in Ennis, and tomorrow will move to the Parkway Shopping Centre, Limerick.