Babies are at the bottom of a stinking row over the waste they produce. And the biggest single item of waste is disposable nappies.

Each baby generates about 520kg of waste a year and 225kg of that is disposable nappy waste.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has a target of converting 155,000 households to real nappy use by April 2006, as part of its efforts to reduce household waste.

All well and wrapped up you might say, but now Wrap, Defra’s waste and resources action programme has attacked the NHS maternity services because they are promoting disposable nappies by default. In most hospitals, parents have little or no access to information and education about real nappies.

The NHS is undermining the Government’s waste strategy and denying parents a fair choice, says Wrap.

Research conducted at the University of Surrey found that mothers who were given the opportunity to try cotton nappies continued to do so later. But most parents do not realise the extent of the environmental problem and use disposable nappies because of the convenience.

The research found that many parents had been surprised to find that disposable nappies were not biodegradable or recyclable. “Disposable nappies account for about 4% of household waste going to landfill and it is currently estimated that they will decompose in 200 – 500 years,” said researcher, Rachel Leach.

Trying cotton nappies in the maternity unit influenced how easy parents thought they were to use. Parents who believed that they would be able to use, buy and wash cotton nappies were most likely to choose them for their baby.

The majority of parents also reported that they were likely to carry on with the type of nappy with which they had started. Cost was not considered an important decision making factor to either those who chose disposable or cotton nappies. An added benefit for the hospital was that they drastically cut their incinerator cost for getting rid of nappy waste.

Information on real nappies is gradually being made more available in the NHS due to the commitment of health professionals, campaign groups and local authorities. 7% of UK maternity units now use cloth nappies.