Great Ways To Save Money And Turn Green Hunt

moonrakerz

tbs624 wrote: »

:eek: Less or fewer, Moonrakerz ? Just thought we should know............ Ref: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=835775

OOOPPPS !!

groatie_queen

Moonrakerz, re nappies

There is some research giving ecological footprint calculations on the Women's Environmental Network website

http://www.wen.org.uk/nappies/resources.htm

moonrakerz

groatie_queen wrote: »

Moonrakerz, re nappies

There is some research giving ecological footprint calculations on the Women's Environmental Network website

http://www.wen.org.uk/nappies/resources.htm

Yes, but......... this seems to be the "converted" preaching to the "converted".

I found one part which refers to the "ecological footprint" of different types of nappy;
from 1600 sq m (service washed) to 4300sq m (disposable) and goes on to compare this to a football pitch of 7500 sq m.
This is described as representing "the land required for each baby".Just what relevance has the size of a football pitch got to do with nappies ? You might as well compare it to the average number of bananas eaten per day by the chimps in London Zoo !

All of this is totally meaningless mumbo-jumbo, there is no explanation of how these figures are arrived at.
I would like to see energy costs, raw material costs, disposal costs, reasoned environmental impact studies.
All of the links I have looked at seem to be based on the premise that cloth nappies are "better" than disposables as a God given fact and then go on to demonstrate how many s****y disposables we throw away each day (8,000,000).
There is absolutely nothing in the way of hard facts to compare the types of nappies that are available.

As I said in my earlier post on this subject I am happy to be shown that cloth nappies are "better" than disposables - but at the moment (IMHO) this appears to be totally based on heresay - just like we were told that you must drink 8 glasses of water a day - then it transpires that it was a complete and utter myth !

geordie_joe

moonrakerz wrote: »

This is described as representing "the land required for each baby".Just what relevance has the size of a football pitch got to do with nappies ?

Nothing at all, except the media think the general public are thick. So when they tell us a large number they have to show us something big so we understand that the number is big.

I would go for traditional reusable nappies but that would not be based on any facts of figures.

A traditional nappy will use a certain amount of cotton. If they still use cotton in disposables then use them will use more cotton. A traditional nappy will be delivered to the store once, while disposables will take lots of journeys.

It takes electricity and soap powder to wash a traditional nappy, but it also takes electricity and probably chemicals to make a disposable one. Which one take the most?

A traditional nappy will last a long time, I think ours did all three children, and then can be passed on to others or used as other things. Dusters, cleaning clothes etc.

Eventually the traditional nappy will end up inland fill, or perhaps be recycled. How many disposables can be recycled, or how many will end up in land fill, or incinerated?

How much fuel does it cost to dispose of the nappies, taking into account a traditional nappy will be disposed of once. But if you used disposable nappies there would be hundreds, if not thousands of nappies to dispose of.

I doubt anyone could come up with accurate figures for this, so all you can do is look at the life cycle of each and try to decide which is best.

moonrakerz

geordie_joe wrote: »

I doubt anyone could come up with accurate figures for this, so all you can do is look at the life cycle of each and try to decide which is best.

Totally agree, but there don't seem to be any accurate figures for anything apart from the huge number of disposables we bury each year. Even fairly basic things, like how much energy & soap powder is required to wash 8,000,000 cotton nappies. How many kWh to tumble them dry when you can't hang them out ? How many vehicle miles driven by nappy laundry vans ?

It almost appears to follow the old adage that "if you say it often enough and loud enough, it eventually becomes accepted as the truth".

harryhound

I know nothing about this topic; but that does not stop me having a go at analysing the situation.

Disposable versus reusable:

Weight about the same so delivering "up hill and down dale" must cost many times as much for disposables.
Fertiliser costs for cotton plus chemicals required to protect the crop and bleach the fibre means that per nappy reusable have a nasty initial footprint. BUT this must be outweighed by the shear volume of trees required for disposables.
Disposables have a plastic covering, which can only be burnt, after the heavy dirty item has been collected and contaminated the rest of the waste stream.
The energy value of disposables is probably zero as they are soggy; this means that any power station operator is going to reject them; this means they must end up in land fill. This means that as they rot they will produce leachate and methane (is that stuff 40 times as polluting as carbon dioxide?).
Reusables need to be washed. We already know that delivering the water costs peanuts from the "bottled water" thread. Disposing of the water costs a similar sum but usually it is down hill all the way. The produce of the sewage works could be an asset, unfortunately it tends to be contaminated with industrial chemicals. (Are we poisoning our children's food supply?).
So the only remaining argument is the cost of washing a reusable as against the cost of pulping the wood/paper for a disposable. Both processes involve quantities of heated water. Do we soak the nappy in sulphur dioxide or do we boil or do we use both?

I don't know the exact figures for any of this but to my way of thinging environmentally it is a "no brainer" - even if it like me you need to buy a replacement washing machine at the end of the process.

Harry

geordie_joe

moonrakerz wrote: »

Totally agree, but there don't seem to be any accurate figures for anything apart from the huge number of disposables we bury each year. Even fairly basic things, like how much energy & soap powder is required to wash 8,000,000 cotton nappies. How many kWh to tumble them dry when you can't hang them out ? How many vehicle miles driven by nappy laundry vans ?

It almost appears to follow the old adage that "if you say it often enough and loud enough, it eventually becomes accepted as the truth".

To be honest it would be impossible to get accurate figures, all you could have is averages or best guesses.

How much energy and soap does it take to wash reusable nappies?

Impossible to say as different machines use different amounts of energy. Different people use different cycles. Some people are "heavy with the powder" while others use soap nuts or echo balls. Some people put 6 nappies in a load others put 12 in. Sometimes the nappies are just wet and need less washing, other times they are really messy and need a boil wash.

You couldn't work out the cost of drying them as you can never know how many will be tumble dried and how many will be hung on the line. How many people half dry them on a clothes horse and just "finish them off" in the drier. How many people cram as many nappies into the drier as possible ands how many just half fill it.

moonrakerz

geordie_joe wrote: »

To be honest it would be impossible to get accurate figures, all you could have is averages or best guesses.

How much energy and soap does it take to wash reusable nappies?

Impossible to say as different machines use different amounts of energy. Different people use different cycles. Some people are "heavy with the powder" while others use soap nuts or echo balls. Some people put 6 nappies in a load others put 12 in. Sometimes the nappies are just wet and need less washing, other times they are really messy and need a boil wash.

You couldn't work out the cost of drying them as you can never know how many will be tumble dried and how many will be hung on the line. How many people half dry them on a clothes horse and just "finish them off" in the drier. How many people cram as many nappies into the drier as possible ands how many just half fill it.

Agree, agree, agree, but............................

if I was still doing cloth nappies, after a few months I could give you a very accurate figure of my costs. Why do there not seem to be any figures available for public consumption ?

x loads of nappies uses ? kWh of electricity for washing machine
x loads of nappies uses ? m3 of water
x loads of nappies makes ? m3 of sewage
x loads of nappies uses ? litres of soaking solution
x loads of nappies uses ? kWh for tumble drier (assume z percent have to be tumbled)
x loads of nappies uses ? kilos of Persil or whatever
depreciation/loss of interest/wear and tear on washing machine = £?

Then of course, someone much more clever would have to calculate the environmental effects of generating the electricity, treating the water and sewage, making the Persil, etc, etc.

I may be above or below the "average" user, do the figures with a couple of dozen users - you will get a figure that is a reasonable stab at what is going on - at the moment there just don't seem to be any figures - just the bland statement that cloth nappies are "better" than disposables.

A German university did just such a thing with dishwashers and came up with some pretty convincing data to show that a dishwasher was "better" than hand washing your dishes.

It isn't exactly rocket science !

geordie_joe

moonrakerz wrote: »

Agree, agree, agree, but............................

if I was still doing cloth nappies, after a few months I could give you a very accurate figure of my costs.

Ah, we are looking at it from different angles. I was thinking about someone who is expecting a baby and wanted to know the impact they would have for each type of nappy. Of course this would be impossible to know as there are too many variables you won't know. How many nappies you'll use each day etc.

But you are right in what you say, there are many things that could be worked out that would help people make a more informed choice.

They did something similar in Modbury, things like working out how many plastic carrier bags went into a container and how many paper carrier bag went into a container. I think it was some thing like, in fuel consumption, transporting one paper carrier bag was equal to transporting 50 cheap plastic carrier bags. So your paper carrier bag has to replace 50 plastic carrier bags to make a difference.

I'm sure things like that could be done for nappies too.

sarahvenus

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