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When Going Natural Means Big Dollar Savings

Monday, May 19, 2008

The newly formed New Zealand Nappy Alliance has a succinct message to financially struggling parents of young children: use cloth nappies and save $4900 over each child’s lifetime.

The Nappy Alliance (www.nzna.org.nz) has closely compared costs of using disposable nappies over the 3.5 years it takes for 80% of children to become toilet trained – and compared them with using the new generation cloth nappies.
The result is a startling $4900 difference.

The Nappy Alliance says using new cloth nappies is as simple as disposables with no soaking, no folding, no pins or other hassle involved. Instead of throwing a used nappy into the bin destined for a landfill, they go straight into a washing machine.
“The total cost for 20 deluxe cloth nappies, wraps, wipes, electricity and washing powder for 3.5 years is $1113,”says NZNA spokeswoman Kate Meads.
“And this cost can be significantly lowered – to around $800 - if parents choose a cheaper brand of modern cloth nappy.”

Costs of disposable nappies have been calculated according to suggested usage promoted on a leading brand’s website. The total cost includes wipes, a wrapper and rubbish bags – coming to $6098.

“We are passionate about cloth nappies because of the comfort to children, the environmental benefits and because they are chemical free ... but it’s pretty hard to ignore the financial savings as well,” says Kate Meads.

The Nappy Alliance is comprised of seven of New Zealand’s leading cloth nappy importers, manufacturers, retailers and distributors. The organisation launched last month with a focus to promote awareness of how effective and easy modern cloth nappies have become.

“They are just not the old flat white nappies with safety pins that people imagine,” says Kate.

She says modern cloth nappies can easily be washed alongside general clothing items: if needed, people can set their machine on a pre-rinse cycle for nappies. (Dryer use for nappies over 3.5 years would add $273 to the overall bill.)

Several councils around New Zealand are now beginning to run cloth nappy schemes including North Shore, Waitakere and Dunedin.

“The Nappy Alliance is made up of passionate and informed mothers,” says Kate. “What we all have in common is a vision for a greener, healthier and financially better off New Zealand.

“What we suggest to parents is to pay off their nappies while they are still pregnant ... or ask for one or two cloth nappies each from friends and relatives as a present for their newborn child.

“Then, while their child grows, deposit the equivalent value they would have spent on disposables every week and in three and a half years they could use that money to fund a family holiday or another major purchase instead of seeing their hard earned cash deposited into a landfill.”

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