Did you know that it costs three times as much to get rid of a “disposable” nappy as to buy one?
The directors, Tops Operations and managers have been discussing how to encourage the use of real nappies in our nurseries for a while. The advantages for parents using real nappies are that they are cheaper in the long run, meaning you could save up to £600 a year! Other benefits include the fact that your child is likely to be potty trained quicker, that they are much much better for the environment and that they will save your local community a significant amount of money as well.
Dealing with nappy waste forms about 4% of everyone’s domestic rates bill, whether they have children or not. It is therefore in every person’s interest that we reduce the use of plastic one-use nappies – which are called disposables, but aren’t really!
We realise this is more work for parents, although not as much as it used to be, and we have included the cost of running a washing machine and drying nappies in our figures.
Therefore we are going to provide a hamper of real nappies to every member of staff with a baby or toddler under 2, for you to try them out, also an eco egg and some enzyme powder (cheapest, most effective way to wash the nappies).
Our hope is that you will then be able to support parents at the nurseries to make a similar change as well as saving yourselves a lot of money. We do ask that when you are finished with the hamper and nappies that you return them so that we can re-issue to other parents with babies and toddlers.
We plan to run a real nappy library and produce some online training through our charity GECCO, and have applied for funding for help with this from Waitrose and Truidos Bank – we will update staff if either are successful!
