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Washable Nappies

A Major Success

Sally Eccleston and Sarah Webb have won the 2004 National Real Nappy Awards (small scheme category) at the annual Women's Environment Network conference.

 

Sally entered the Sustainable Wallingford Washable Nappy Trials Scheme into the awards and we won 1st prize in the small scheme category, winning £2000 to spend on further nappy work.
 

Sally has been running the trials single-handed for the last few months, but this award has motivated Sarah to get back involved.

 

We have not yet fully decided whether we would like to use the monies to fund free nappy giveaways to new mums from the maternity ward in Wallingford, or whether we should try to encourage the maternity ward to use washables in their ward.

 

 

Sustainable Wallingford Provides Washable Nappies for Wallingford Hospital

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Nappy Trials

Sarah and Sally are by now probably very well known amongst Wallingford's new and soon-to-be parents. They have been 'touring' the town's ante-natal & toddler groups to explain the environmental and health benefits of 'real'/washable cotton nappies versus the disposable kind.

 

The results are phenomenal - 26 people are using the trial and 22 have converted to cotton nappies, which means that, at a very conservative estimate, 11 tonnes of disposable nappies have been saved from landfill.

 

If you are interested in having a free 7 day trial of washable nappies, please contact Sally Eccleston at 01491 834780 - or please pass on our details to anyone you think might be interested.

 

The case for cotton nappies:

  • Washables are easy to use (no pins), easy to wash (60 degrees C in the washing machine) and don't need soaking.

  • With washables, solid waste is simply flushed away with a bio-degradeable liner, so poos are not hanging around the house for days in plastic bags

  • According to research carried out by the Cotton Diaper Association in the US, cotton nappies users have five times fewer incidences of nappy rash.

  • Disposables consume at least ten times the raw materials

  • Disposables use five times more energy than washables when being produced

  • Most Disposables take at least 200 years to decompose!