Academic literature on the topic 'Disposable nappies'

Socially conscious parents . . . can now throw away their guilt along with the baby's disposable diapers. A biodegradable diaper is being marketed by a Brookline, Mass., company, Eco-Matrix. . . . Eco-Matrix says parents can put the diapers, Nappies, in the garbage without fear that their convenience is degrading the environment. Nappies were developed by Dafoe & Dafoe of Brantford, Ontario. Because of the development of a special plastic that is bonded to vegetable oil and to a cornstarch derivative, Nappies break down in two to seven years depending on environmental conditions. . . . The plastic outside liner on non-biodegradable diapers has a life of 300 to 500 years. Nappies cost about $8.99 for 48 medium-sized diapers or 32 large ones.

The use of disposable nappies with high absorptive power caused confusion in the past leading to the erroneous diagnosis of oligunea. We report crystalluria as another confusing condition in association with the use of a new brand of nappies, Ultra-Pampers. A 13-month-old infant, receiving regular treatment with theophylline for recurrent wheezing, was admitted to the hospital because of a three-day history of passing crystals in his urine. Each time his diaper was changed, his mother noticed crystals and jelly-like particles about 5 to 10 mm in diameter in his wet nappies.

Used disposable nappies constitute a waste stream that has no established treatment method. The purpose of this study was the assessment of the dark fermentation of used disposable nappies and expired food products under different pH values. The biodegradable part of the used disposable nappies was recovered and co-fermented with expired food products originating from supermarkets. The recoverable economic potential of the process was examined for different volatile fatty acids exploitation schemes and process pH values. The process pH strongly affected the products, with optimum hydrogen production at pH 6 (4.05 NLH2/Lreactor), while the amount of produced volatile fatty acids was maximized at pH 7 (13.44 g/L). Hydrogen production was observed at pH as low as pH 4.5 (2.66 NLH2/Lreactor). The recoverable economic potential was maximized at two different pH values, with the first being pH 4.5 with minimum NaOH addition requirements (181, 138, and 296 EUR/ton VS of substrate for valorization of volatile fatty acids through microbial fuel cell, biodiesel production, and anaerobic digestion, respectively) and the second being pH 6, where the hydrogen production was maximized with the simultaneous production of high amounts of volatile fatty acids (191, 142, and 339 EUR/ton VS of substrate respectively).

Marknadens påstående om att ”använda så lite plast som möjligt” är vilseledande när 5 av 11 miljövänliga blöjmärken observerades innehålla 80-75% fossil baserad plast.  Detta demonstrerar att vilseledande marknadsföring är närvarande på marknaden av miljövänliga engångsblöjor. Enligt denna studie kan en produkt kan idag innehålla 80% fossilbaserad råvarumaterial och fortfarande bli klassad som en miljövänlig produkt. Förutom att gröntvättning vilseleder konsumenter så bidrar den med att bromsa utvecklingen mot en hållbar konsumtion. Detta eftersom gröntvättning förhindrar strävan utförd av uppriktiga miljövänliga företag och vägleder genuina konsumenter mot icke-optimala val. Som i sin tur ger upphov av effekten att öka produkt konsumtionen och minska rörelsen mot en mer hållbar miljö.  Det är därför av intresse att framhäva möjlig falsk marknandsföring genom att undersöka marknadens påståenden i jämförelse med laborativa resultat. De ”gröna” företag som undersökts var: Lillydoo, Naty, Pampers Pure, Kit &amp; Kin, Bambo Nature, Love &amp; Green, Moltex, Seventh Generation, The Honest company, Hello Bello, och Tooshies by Tom. Som referens valdes två “icke-gröna” märken Libero och Pampers. Dessa totalt 13 st märken undersöktes genom dem analytiska metoder FTIR, kol-14-metoden, och densitetsmätningar. För metoden GC/MS undersöktes enbart det ”icke-gröna” märket Pampers. Från dessa resultat kunde blöjans plast polymerer, okända ämnen, och den totala mängden biobaserat material per blöja bli identifierad. Dem polymerer som identifierades var polypropen, polyeten, polyetentereftalat, eller bioco polyprpylene/polyetylene, och även den nedbrytningsbara polylaktid. För dem ”icke-gröna” märkena, var den totala mängden biobaserade kol inom intervallet av 13-15%. För dem ”gröna” blöjorna så varierade den totala mängden biobaserat kol till 20-53%. Enligt dessa resultat framtagna av denna studie påvisas att endast en skillnad av 5% procentenheter behövs för blöjan ska marknadsföras som miljövänlig. De okända ämnena som observerades i Pampers blöjan var dioxiner och furaner på nivåer ng/kg materialprov.<br>The market claims of  “using as little plastic as possible” is misleading when 5 out of 11 “green” diaper brands analysed contain 80-75 % fossil based plastic. It is also evident that few brands have changed materials going against babies skin from fossil based plastic to plant based, although they claim only natural material touches babies skin. This demonstrates greenwashing present in marketing of environmentally friendly disposable diapers. Based on this study, calling a product “green” today is not related to any demands on product materials and parents are easily mislead. A product can include 80 % fossil based plastic and be considered green without going against the law. Not only will greenwashing mislead consumers, but it will also contribute to slowing the worldwide development towards sustainable consumption, since greenwashing may have a risk of discouraging sincere companies efforts to go green and guide truly genuine consumers towards non-optimal choices. This gives potentially the effect of unnecessarily increasing product consumption and thereby slowing the movement towards a more sustainable environment. It is therefore of interest to highlight possible greenwashing in the diaper industry. With the hope of creating customer awareness during purchase of “green” disposable diapers. This is accomplished by investigating the market claims compared to laboratory analytical results. The “green” brands under investigation were Lillydoo, Naty, Pampers Pure, Kit &amp; Kin, Bambo Nature, Love &amp; Green, Moltex, Seventh Generation, The Honest company, Hello Bello, and Tooshies by Tom. For reference values two “non-green” brands are chosen as Libero and Pampers. These in total 13 brands were examined using the analytical techniques  FTIR, radiocarbon dating, and density measurements. For the GC/MS method only the fossil based diaper brand Pampers was examined. From these experiments the diaper polymers, unknown substances, and total amount of biobased content may be identified.  The diaper polymers observed were polypropylene, polyethylene,polyethylene terephthalate, or the bicomponent fiber polypropylene/polyethylene, as well as the biodegradable polylactic acid. For “non-green” brands, the amount of biobased carbon content ranged from 13-15%. While for the “green” diaper brands the amount of biobased carbon varied from 20-53%. The results obtained from this study, show that some brands do not exchange more than  5 % of materials from fossil based to biobased and still contain 80% plastic while labelling themselves as green. As the certifications frequently used by diaper brands have too tolerant levels for fossile based materials, the “plastic” diapers can obtain certificates consumers falsely believe guarantees a green product. There is a big need for stricter laws on what a diaper needs to fullfil to be called itself green, equally so on how industry set up certification criteria. Today consumers who want to buy green diapers are too easily misled as majority of claimed green brands are not much greener than standard diapers.

There are many life cycle assessments performed on nappy products in different countries which differ with waste management, distances to producers of nappies and retailers. In this paper, life cycle assessment is performed using Simapro with assumptions on the Swedish customer and the current waste management that exist in Sweden to evaluate the environmental load for disposable and reusable nappies. The aim of this study is to find out which nappy is better from an environmental perspective. According to the results of this study, reusable nappies perform better in most of the chosen categories. Only a few were outperformed by disposable diapers, these include human carcinogenic, land use, water consumption and stratospheric ozone depletion. The highest impact in the life cycle of a reusable nappy was in the manufacturing phase with cotton production related processes and in the use phase, where most of the impact came from the additional electricity use. For the disposable system, a huge amount of 3796 diapers was needed in the production phase for the nappy usage of an average child. The manufacturing affects the environmental impact categories like resource depletion, freshwater and terrestrial ecotoxicity, ozone formation, global warming potential and others. These findings can improve understanding of different environmental loads of the manufacturing processes, use and end phases of the nappy and contribute to sustainable development.<br><p>2020-06-05</p>

This thesis examines the accuracy of common claims made against the disposable nappy on environmental grounds. It focuses on the issues of disposal, fluff pulp manufacture and resource requirements. Selected claims, which are sourced from newspapers, magazines and publications by government and non government bodies, are presented and categorized. The technical and scientific literature relevant to the claims is critically reviewed. Most of the claims presented were found to be exaggerated, inaccurate and based on arguments which had very little to do with disposable nappies.

Chapter 12 describes material aspects of everyday products. For example, the role of nanoparticles in sunscreens. It also covers surfactants and their role in micelles in washing-up liquids. The role of nanotechnology in cosmetics is stressed. The surprising use of hydrogels in disposable nappies (diapers) and the role of microstructure in sweets such as hard candy (boiled sweets) are described. Other everyday products include breathable garments, stainless steel and acrylic textiles.