Page 2521 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 31 July 2019
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
only from Google, but over 1,500 litres of crude oil is used to produce enough disposables for a baby until they are potty-trained.
There are big differences in transportation costs. While initially you have to get a set of nappies to the household, with the disposables you keep on bringing them in and then you have to take them away to dispose of them. They are a very mixed product. The plastic is bad enough but plastic by itself can be recycled reasonably well. You also have a mixture of some synthetics, some organic products—certainly the early ones used a lot of tree pulp—and obviously human body waste. So you have a whole heap of things and disposing of them is quite difficult. I have heard people say they can get their compost hot enough to compost nappies reasonably well, but I share the scepticism Ms Lawder is expressing on her face that that is possible.
Cloth nappies, of course, have to be washed. That requires water, but it is a minor amount compared to the amount used to manufacture disposable nappies. You can use biodegradable nappies, and people who are reasonably organised will segregate nappies with poo on them from the nappies with just urine on them and you use a lot less water et cetera if you do that. I have read some figures that the manufacture of disposables uses 230 per cent more water and 350 per cent more energy compared to cloth nappies. I do not know how accurate that is, but it has to be somewhere in that order of magnitude.
I understand new parents have enough going on trying to work out how to live with this new person who has been added to their lives on a 24-hour basis. So the most important thing with cloth nappies is education and understanding they will work and that in the long run they are good for the environment and your financial sustainability.
That is why I amended the motion to include midwives, MACH nurses and disability support and aged-care workers. Who are new parents going to be talking to? We do not have to worry about those who are talking to the environment centre; they are already on this path. The new parents who are overwhelmed will be talking to those sorts of people, and if they can say, “Look, it actually works. This is how you do it,” that will make the whole thing possible. They are not the only groups who can be part of this; it would be really good to do some funding for the Australian Breastfeeding Association who, again, also talk to people at this stage of their life.
The important thing is that cloth nappies work environmentally as well as economically. As Ms Cheyne said, they cost a fair amount up-front, but everything you read shows that over any period of time they save money big time. That is why I think the idea of rebates is reasonable. But given the fact that the people who use cloth nappies will save money overall, we need to target our financial enthusiasm. We do not want to end up with a case of middle-class welfare where only the people who have enough money to buy them in the first place get a refund, which I think is what would happen. I am very happy with the idea that we look at the feasibility of a rebate scheme, but we need to focus this as far as possible on people for whom the money is a barrier.
Given the long-term cost savings, for many people in Canberra money is not the barrier; the barrier for using reusable nappies, incontinence products and menstruation
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video