Plastic Free July in Our House

I'm a bit late with this post... We are already a week into July. I can barely believe it! Since Plastic Free July is such a great initiative, however, I want to share what our family is up to this month.

I have previously posted about how to use less cling wrap. That is a very simple and easy thing to stop using around the home. Our family already takes our own re-usable shopping bags into the shops (well, most of the time!), doesn't use straws, and uses re-usable water bottles. These items are good ones to start out with when you are beginning to cut back the plastic in your life.

My glass re-usable water bottle. Sure it cost more upfront but I love drinking out of it.

This month I am challenging our family to reduce single-use plastic even further by:

• Buying more bulk products, such as oats, beans, lentils, sultanas, & cleaning products, by bringing my own containers to be refilled.

• I have bought myself a reusable takeaway coffee cup (at last!). I rarely buy take away coffee since I feel too guilty about the waste. This is a very exciting purchase since I am now able to indulge on the run.

• I am saving all of the single-use plastic packets that we finish throughout the month in a (re-usable!) shopping bag.  I will review these products each week to see if I can find ways to reduce or eliminate more plastic from our lives.

• I have spoken to my child care centre about trialling using cloth nappies for Turtle on the day that she goes there each week. They have agreed to trial them this week. If it goes well then we will continue to use cloth at child care in future.

Have you already heard of Plastic Free July? Are you inspired to try and reduce your single-use plastic this month? Please share any tips and ideas below.

Why I like to use cloth nappies

Before I had Turtle I was determined to put her into reusable or cloth nappies.  Mainly because I wanted to make less waste that would end up landfill.

Newborns can use up to 12 nappies each day and when babies are a bit older they might go through 6-8.  Most babies wear nappies until they are two or three years of age.  Each child is therefore likely to go through at least 4,000 - 5,000 nappies.  That is a lot of waste.  I would love to see a pile of 4,000 - 5,000 nappies on display somewhere to fully comprehend how much waste is going into landfill for each baby.

The pouch style of nappy that we used for Turtle from 3 - 6 months

Interestingly, however, if you read up on the benefits of using cloth nappies you will see that this is a hot topic in the sustainability/environmental area.  The jury seems to be out on whether disposable or cloth nappies are better (or worse!) for the environment. Here is a Choice Magazine review on the topic.  When disposable and cloth nappies have been compared for their environmental performance - the resources used to make them, care and maintenance, and requirements for disposal and eventual degradation - there has been no clear winner.  The environmental costs of the different nappies are summarised well in this link. 

Despite this debate I cannot believe that using disposables could ever be more environmentally friendly than using cloth.  Not that I'm judging anyone who chooses (or needs!) to use disposables.  Having a baby is hard work and you have to do what works for you.  There are some biodegradable disposable options available as an alternative too.   We use these when we go out for long periods, and also for night time sleeps since Turtle was 6 months old and was wetting through the cloth.  I choose to use mainly cloth because it is a much better fit with my values and, with the support of Mr Fix It, we have managed to make it work for us.

We used the sized style of nappy for a few months (6-10 months) before moving to a one size style that grows with Turtle

Cloth nappies are washed every day or two while in use.  For the sake of comparing their performance to disposables it is presumed that cloth nappies are washed in hot water and then dried in a clothes dryer.   Since we live in Perth it is warm for most of they year so nappies dry quickly on the line and there is no need to use a clothes dryer.  This reduces the energy needed to wash our nappies, which improves their environmental performance.

Another way to improve the environmental performance of cloth is to use them on more than one baby.  Each time that you use the nappies for a new baby it doubles the environmental performance.  I have bought almost all of my nappies secondhand so even if we don't end up having a second baby I know that this has reduced the environmental impact from Turtle's nappies.  It has also saved us money since the nappies are cheaper secondhand.  I resell the nappies that we don't need (when Turtle has grown out of them or when we find another style that we prefer) so they can be used again by other families. 

I am really glad that we have made the effort to use cloth nappies (we use modern cloth nappies or MCN) on Turtle.  Don't get me wrong, it's added to our daily tasks since we tend to wash a load of nappies most days but I feel good that we have been able to do it.

Do you feel strongly about the kind of nappies you use on your little one(s)? Are you also concerned about the waste nappies cause?