Swansea parents are being urged to save hundreds of pounds and reduce waste by ditching disposables and using reusable nappies on their babies.
Real Nappy Week runs from April 26 to May 2 and is supported by Waste Awareness Wales and will involve a range of activities and events across the country.
Swansea Council is encouraging local mums and dads to take up this opportunity to find out more about real nappies, their financial and environmental benefits and how easy it is to use them on their children.
Research suggests that by the time a baby is potty trained around 5,000 nappies will have been used- and that’s enough to fill 156 bin bags that would head to landfill.
Real nappy users save around £500 for their first child and even more for subsequent children. They also have the pleasure of playing their part in reducing the mountain of 200 million disposable nappies thrown away in Wales each year which currently head for landfill to slowly rot.
Trish Flint, Swansea Council’s Recycling Officer, said: “An estimated 200 million disposable nappies are thrown away in Wales every year which end up buried in the ground.
“By encouraging more parents to use real nappies it will help us reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill. This has a financial benefit not just for the parents using the real nappies but also in terms of the cost to the Council and its Council Tax payers for sending waste to landfill.”
Rachel Jowitt, Head of Waste Support at Waste Awareness Wales, said: “Since the start of the recession, many more parents have been looking for cheaper ways to look after their children and this has extended to their choice of nappies.
“Parents have started to realise that real cotton nappies are a natural, easy and cost-effective alternative to disposables and they don’t cost the earth.
“Real nappies have moved on a lot since many people’s last experiences of them and we want to show people just how they have evolved.
“These days there’s not a safety pin in sight, just colourful designs and patterns that come in nappy shapes and fasten with fabric or poppers and this makes them incredibly easy and fashionable to use.”
For more information on real nappies in Swansea go to Swansea Council’s website at http://www.swansea.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=15924
For more information on the Real Nappy Week visit the Real Nappy Wales website at www.realnappies-wales.org.uk or www.wasteawarenesswales.org.uk
