UK – nappies LCA indicates environmental parity between disposables and reusables

Parents will need to do more than just think about the type of nappy they buy if they want to look after the environment according to a major study published by the Environment Agency for England & Wales. The study, which looks at and evaluates the environmental impacts arising from every stage of the life cycle of disposable and reusable nappies, found that there was little or nothing to choose between them.



At the heart of the study seems to be the question of parental behaviour – it is not that one nappy system is inherently, always better or worse than another, rather that people choose to operate systems in particular ways. With reusable nappies for example, if they were washed at lower temperatures and air-dried, the environmental advantages would become significant – but in general at present, they aren‘‘t.



For each nappy type studied, all the materials, chemicals and energy consumed during manufacture, use and disposal were identified and the resulting emissions to the environment accounted for.



Three different nappy types were assessed:



disposable nappies home laundered flat cloth nappies commercially laundered prefolded cloth nappies delivered to the home



The study is based upon an average UK child wearing nappies for the first two and half years. It looked closely at a wide range of activities associated with disposable and reusable nappies which affect the environment. These included:



the energy and material used in the manufacture of the nappy the daily number of changes required for the different types of nappy how reusable nappies are washed – temperature, size of loads, type of detergents etc.



The study, which was carried out by environmental consultants ERM, is claimed to be the most comprehensive and thorough independent study of its kind ever undertaken in the UK. The goals of the study were:



to compile a detailed life cycle inventory of the environmental burdens associated with the production, use and disposal of reusable and disposable nappies, considering various options for cleaning of reusable nappies, and disposal options for disposable nappies to use the life cycle inventory data to compare the potential environmental impacts arising from reusable and disposable nappies under the various scenarios considered.



For each nappy type studied, all the materials, chemicals and energy consumed during nappy manufacture, use and disposal, and all the emissions to the environment were identified. All these ‘‘flows‘‘ were quantified and traced back to the extraction of raw materials that were required to supply them. For example, polymer materials used in disposable nappies were linked to the impacts associated with crude oil extraction and the flows associated with the fluff pulp used in disposables were traced back to paper and forest growth. For cloth nappies, the flows were traced back to cotton growth and production. All transport steps have been included.



The environmental impact categories assessed were:



resource depletion climate change ozone depletion human toxicity acidification fresh-water aquatic toxicity terrestrial toxicity photochemical oxidant formation (low level smog) nutrification of fresh water (eutrophication).



These environmental impacts were calculated for an average nappy system in each case. The study therefore excluded impacts such as noise, biodiversity and the amount of land used by each system.



Barbara Young, Chief Executive of the Environment Agency said: “This study was carried out to establish the true environmental impacts of using disposable and reusable nappies. Although there is no substantial difference between the environmental impacts of the three systems studied, it does show where each system can be improved.



“We hope manufacturers of disposable nappies will use this study to improve the environmental pe