The study looked at how disposables are designed and produced, how they are disposed of, and the laundering choices for reusable types.

The evidence was based on disposable nappies made in 2006. It found that on average such a nappy would account for a global warming impact of 550kg of carbon dioxide equivalents used over the time period of two and a half years. This shows a decrease in the impact compared with the average disposable in previous years, and shows changes in manufacturing processing which have caused a 13.5% decrease in the weight of an average throw-away nappy.

The report highlighted that the manufacture of disposable nappies has ‘greater environmental impact in the UK than their waste management by landfill'.

When looking at reusable cloth varieties, the study was based on the use of an average washing machine and tumble drier, which had a global warming impact of 570kg of carbon dioxide equivalents. However it was also demonstrated that this depended very much on the way the nappies were laundered.Washing the nappies in fuller loads or line-drying them outside at all times, was found to reduce this impact by 16%. If the nappies were washed in a fuller load, dried outside all the time, and were to be reused on a second child at a future time, then these three factors ‘would lower the global warming impact by 40% from the baseline scenario, or some 200kg of carbon dioxide equivalents over the two and a half years, equal to driving a car approximately 1000km'.

If a parent tumble-dried all her reusables, it would produce a global warming impact a drastic 43% higher than the baseline scenario. Similarly washing them on 90 degrees c instead of at 60 degrees C would increase the global warming impact by 31%. Together washing at the higher temperature and tumble drying increased the impact by a75% over the baseline scenario - some 420kg of carbon dioxide equivalent over the time frame of two and a half years.

So the conclusion of this recent study is that the environmental impact of using disposable nappies can be either better or worse than using reusable ones depending on how they are laundered. Yummy mummies are only helping the planet if they line dry whenever possible, tumble dry very infrequently, use energy efficient appliances, never wash above 60 degrees C, use fuller loads and reuse cloth nappies on other children.

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