Shropshire Master Composters News: Compostable nappies

Being an earth-conscious new mum, I was determined that I would have an eco-baby and to only use washable nappies. I soon found however that having to wake up and feed her every three hours was one thing but having to change her washable nappy at the same time was just too much! I suggested to my husband that we used a disposable nappy just at nightime as this should last baby through the night without causing nappy rash. Unfortunately I found out that hubby had actually been listening to me over the past few years as I ranted on about waste and recycling and he was adamant that using a disposable nappy was just not acceptable (note it was not him getting up and feeding and changing baby every three hours!). I did some research and found that the most eco-friendly disposable nappy claimed to be over 50% biodegradable and have lots of other super-eco features and hubby’s response – if we were to use them, we would have to compost them rather than sending to landfill.

So, we emptied out a 250l compost bin, put in some twiggy stuff at the bottom, and a bit of ready compost to give it a boost and set to with putting in the disposable nappies in this compost bin. I must make it clear that we only put in wet nappies, not soiled ones, those did go to landfill! I thought back to training Master Composters and how to get the nappies composting well and decided that nappies must be carbon rich, so a brown material and that I would need to balance this with some green. It was winter and I didn’t have much green stuff so instead every week or so added in a handful of chicken manure (such as SuperDug). Once the weather hotted up I would add a layer of grass cuttings every now and again. I kept the lid off the bin most of the time as of course being super-absorbent, it was important to ensure there was enough moisture in there. Also, I cut the nappies open when adding so that the composting bugs could easily get to work on the nappy innards.

And now 21 months later with baby no. two on the way and the compost bin nearly full I decided I really needed to do something other than just keep filling the nappy compost bin so I set to to dig it out. I was really pleasantly surprised, hubby’s exact words were “Amazing”. At the bottom of the bin I found some really lovely rich looking compost and the bin was full of worms and other creepy crawlies; I have put this as a mulch on my asparagus bed. On the negative side, I had to pull out the bits of nappy that didn’t compost ie the waterproof liner and the plastic tabs but I was surprised how little of this undegraded stuff there was. The compost did smell a bit but I suspect this was because there wasn’t much air in the mix rather than because of the nappies. I have now re-filled the bin with the partly composted nappies and used egg boxes and twigs to add lots of air into the structure and am hoping for even greater things!

Of course composting nappies isn’t something we would recommend to the general public but as Master Composters I thought you would like to hear proof that the staff at Garden Organic really are as passionate (obsessive?) as you about composting!