Find information and suppliers for eco nappies and cloth nappies in Australia.

A single baby can get through more than 5000 disposable nappies before they are fully toilet trained, and each nappy can take up to 500 years to break down fully in landfill, leaching chemicals and releasing methane as it decomposes.

   "Eco-disposables" have less plastic and chemicals and are about 70 per cent biodegradable - compared to about 40% of a standard disposable nappy. But bear in mind even eco-disposables won't compost in landfill, because it is anaerobic (lacking oxygen) so to get them to biodegrade you need to compost them yourself, eventually removing the non-biodegradable core from the compost. We would suggest composting wet nappies but discarding soiled ones.

   On the other hand, you can raise a child on 20-25 cloth nappies - and those nappies can then be handed on to another child. That makes cloth a lot cheaper than disposables, even if the cost of the individual nappies is greater, and better for the environment.

   To be even more environmentally friendly, choose cloth nappies made from organic cotton, hemp or bamboo. These cost more than ordinary cotton nappies but are better for the environment because non-organic cotton is grown using a lot of chemicals.

   You can also reduce your energy, chemical and water use by washing cloth nappies in cold water using chemical-free washing powder, and dry on a clothes line.

   Modern fitted cloth nappies are more comfortable and leak less than traditional folded nappies. But if you prefer, you could use cloth at home during the day and eco-disposables at night or when out and about. 

   Cloth does involve a bit of extra work, as it takes about 5-15 minutes a day to wash and dry cloth nappies. A nappy service can save you this time and effort; the cost of using cloth nappies with a nappy wash service is similar to the cost of using disposables.

   The most environmentally friendly solution is not to use nappies at all, as billions of people around the world do. See our Children: resources section for some websites about nappy-free parenting and using cloth nappies.

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