Falkirk Nappy Library

“We are all cloth-bum parents, and we run the nappy library to help other parents and carers understand and use cloth nappies and other re-useable items.”

In Scotland alone 440,000 disposable nappies go to landfill each day*. One nappy takes about 450 years to decompose.

I visited Denise, one of the members who runs the Falkirk Nappy Library, to find out more about what they offer local parents and, is using reuseable nappies as time-consuming and smelly as it sounds?

“The Falkirk Nappy Library has been around since 2013, originally called Falkirk Real Nappies. People’s motives were, and still are to a large extent, primarily driven by cost – reuseable nappies are more economical in the long run than disposables.” But with increasing awareness of sustainability factors many people are now also motivated by the lower environmental impact of reuseables. “The Nappy Library offers kits that you can hire, along with advice and support from the group, if you’re thinking of making the switch to cloth, or expecting a baby and would like to try cloth but are nervous about what it involves.” You can hire a kit for a month, which contains a range of different styles of reusable nappies so you can try with what works best for you and your baby before you invest in them yourself.

The Library is run by volunteers who host a monthly Nappy Natter at Baby Steps charity shop on Manor Street, Falkirk, on the second Tuesday of every month, from 10am-11:30am where you can pick up your kit and speak to the volunteers and other cloth-bum parents.

The Library is run by volunteers who host a monthly Nappy Natter at Baby Steps charity shop on Manor Street, Falkirk, on the second Tuesday of every month, from 10am-11:30am where you can pick up your kit and speak to the volunteers and other cloth-bum parents.

“You can’t quite match the convenience of disposables, but it’s close,” says Denise. “It’s a myth that you have to spend a lot of time with re-useables. If you use a liner, you shake anything solid off into the toilet and put the nappy into a nappy bucket. Every few days you pop a nappy wash through the machine. It’s as simple as that; there is no need to soak in a solution, wring out, manually pre-rinse or anything. You use the pre-rinse on your washing machine.” Drying them without a drier can take longer but as Denise says, they dry surprisingly quickly and it’s a small price to pay for the reduced impact on your wallet and on the environment.

And the beauty of the Falkirk Nappy Library is that you can try it for first before deciding to invest in a set of re-useables yourself.

If you are interested, please contact the nappy library via their facebook page

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Over the course of an average of two and a half years before babies are potty trained, using reusable nappies can save you a whopping £1475 or more, including laundry costs. Plus, you can sell on your reusables and make money back.

The number of nappies you need will vary as every baby is different. Based on an average of two and a half years’ worth of nappies, which comes to about 4000 nappy changes, and £100 of laundry costs:

Average overall cost for own brand disposable nappies: £1875

Average overall cost for reusable nappies: £400

Average overall saving: £1475

From: https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk

*figure from Zero Waste Scotland

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Article published in Konect October 2019

Author: Helen-Jane Shearer

#falkirk #sustainability #parenting