Notice how in the world of nappying, the word “disposable” often becomes synonymous with “hygienic”? How often I hear the phrase “but the poo…” as an excuse for avoiding disposables, as though children who wear disposables don’t engage in that sort of unhygienic caper, or that their parents don’t have to deal with it.
There’s a lot of talk on parenting forums about the can’s and cannot’s of disposable nappy management. One of the leading causes for contention centres around whether you’re a “scraper” or a “non-scraper”. These discussions often degenerate into arguments over the convenience of disposables if you need to scrape the poo off anyway. Why not just use cloth, mums ask?
Regardless of your nappy preference or level of commitment to either side of the argument, there are actually some serious issues surrounding the disposal of human waste in the garbage.
Untreated human waste contains harmful bacteria so it is important that it lands where it belongs, rather than floating around in waste receptacles for days and weeks in the bathroom, kitchen and laundry; or in the local tip for the next few months.
On many disposable nappy packets and websites, the manufacturers actually advise consumers to dispose of solid waste into a toilet before wrapping the nappy into its neat little inoffensive bundle and popping into the garbage.(1)
While not technically illegal, in the sense that you could be arrested for non-compliance, some local councils do actually stipulate against the disposal of faeces in the garbage collection services they provide.
Page 34 of the City of Perth Health Act on the Use of Receptacles states that the “owner or occupier of premises shall… not deposit… in a receptacle… sewage, faeces or urine”.(2)
The website for Victoria’s Yarra Ranges Shire Council states that “nappies with solids removed” can be placed in garbage disposal.(3)
The Shire of Latrobe (also in Victoria) says that nappies can go into garbage disposal if they are “empty and wrapped”.(4)
Illegal or not, issue of contention or not; surely commonsense would suggest that flushing solids is the cleanest, most hygienic way to manage human waste – regardless of the receptacle in which it travels to the loo!
Tell us what you think. If you use disposables, do you use a flushable liner to assist in the clean-up?
© Oz Baby Trends 2010
Sources
(1)Supermarket analysis and http://www.huggies.com.au/nappies/huggies-nappies/nappy-change/changing-your-newborn
(2)http://www.perth.wa.gov.au/documentdb/678
(3)http://www.yarraranges.vic.gov.au/Residents/Waste__Recycling/Weekly_Garbage_Collection
(4)http://www.latrobe.vic.gov.au/WebFiles/Council%20Services/Recycling%20and%20Waste/Area%20A.pdf
This is my biggest arguement for using cloth! All I have to do is lift off the flushable liner and flush away - no scraping, no fuss, no hassle. A friend of mine who was also a cloth nappy user posed the question - Is it acceptable for me to come to your house, poo in your bin and leave it there for a week? Of course not, but that is what some mum's were doing when disposing of their nappies . . . .
ReplyDeleteGreat article!
ReplyDeleteLittle squirt is the best solution for me. I was lucky to have a great cloth nappy store advise me to get one before I started using the nappies, so I have never had to do anything different. If you have a tank hooked up to the loo then you dont even have to freak about the tiny extra bit of water used. I estimate for a pooey runny nappy that i want to blast really clean i only prob use about a litre of water at most, which is way less than a half flush in even the newest types of toilets.
i have been meaning to get a little squirt for years! we have 2 in cloth, we use flushable liners and hand rinse anything that needs it. when we do use disposables we scrape and flush, it just makes sense.
ReplyDelete