Cities & CommunitiesConsumption & Production

Nappy Ever After, a laundry service for nappies

Published

07 Nov 2012

Written by

Joan Marc

share:

Nappy Ever After is a company in London that offers a service to wash cotton nappies. This system is perfect for those parents who want to change from single-use to reusable nappies but don’t have the time or the energy to wash them.

The benefits of using washable cloth nappies are well-known;
– for the baby: gains in comfort and freshness, reduces the temperature in the genital area and the skin-problems and leave the use of nappies before than with single-use.
– for the parents; don’t need to go nappy-shopping and it can mean savings in comparison to single-use nappies,
– for the environment and the common good: every baby generates yearly more than half a ton of waste in single-use nappies –874kg in the UK-. It takes 500 years for a single-use nappy to degrade. If you calculate the number of newborns in your country times 1000-1500 kgs of waste each you will see how much can the local authorities save in landfill or incineration costs.

The functioning of the system is easy; nappies are delivered and picked up once a week to individual customers and nurseries. The customers decide how many nappies they want to receive –normally around 50 per week -. All the system is run at small-scale and local level, generating local jobs and sustainability.

Something observed in nurseries where this has been applied –also in individual cases- is that with reusable nappies the children feel when they are wet and they start to control themselves a lot before than others. So it has an important education component for the babies.
This laundry service for nappies is not unique, this system is wide-spread in the US and Australia with several succesful examples and there are similar experiences in The Netherlands or Italy.

Other laundry services in the UK:
www.numberonefornappies.co.uk
http://www.nappybliss.co.uk/
http://www.yummybums.co.uk/