What One Person Can Do: A bottom up approach to sustainable parenting

Eager to reduce the impact her children will have on the environment, LETITIA CARMICHAEL opted to use cloth nappies. Here she tells DAMIAN MCCARNEY of her satisfaction in seeing a clothesline full of clean nappies, why you may need to segregate your cutlery and while it’s tough at first it’s worth persevering with...

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They do what they can. Ask Letitia Carmichael and her partner Finian McNamara, and they’ll tell you they could do more. But they’re certainly doing more than many of the rest of us in limiting environmental impact.
For instance they’re fastidious about recycling. It pains them to throw anything into the black bin. When it comes to shopping, they’re reluctant to buy new. Appliances, clothes, toys for their daughter Yari are all sourced secondhand where possible. When it comes to food, they are pescatarians, while Letitia is a fish finger’s width away from being a fully fledged vegetarian. They’re hyper-averse to plastic packaging, and they drive a hybrid car to reduce emissions. So when the couple were blessed with their daughter Yari, it was only natural that the prospect of using disposable nappies would pose a problem.
Many parents of young children lift nappies off the supermarket shelves without giving a second thought to anything other than maybe its price, a fact borne out by the estimated 220 million soiled nappies dumped in Ireland every year.
Letitia is currently a homemaker, but her professional background is in childcare so she’s well used to changing nappies.
“There would have been 10 children, two staff – four nappy changes each,” she recalls of one crèche where she worked. “They were all disposables – that’s 40 nappies a day, multiplied by five days a week.”
Online estimates vary wildly on how many nappies the average child piddles and poos its way through before it is potty trained, from a rather conservative sounding 4,500, to a high of 7,000. Letitia doesn’t want to add such colossal figures. She was confident when she raised the prospect of cloth nappies with Finian “that he would be 100%” behind her. 
Letitia is in the midst of potty training Yari, so this first part of her cloth nappy journey is coming to an end; but pregnant with their second child, due in March, another journey awaits.
It all commenced by contacting the Cloth Nappy Library Ireland, who arrange nappy loans so parents can see how they work in practice.
“You get all different types of nappies [from the library],” she says over a cuppa in their Swellan home.
A ‘nappy trial’ costs €25 for 10 nappies for three weeks; long term loans cost €30 for 20-24 nappies for nine months.
Think cloth nappies and it conjures mental images of a folded fluffy white hand towel with a safety pin keeping all in place. Letitia’s freshly washed reusable nappies come in every colour imaginable, but white’s not one of them. They have a wipeable fabric exterior with velcro or clipped straps to fix them in place with a soft liner that does all the work when it comes to absorbing pee and poo. The nappies have slight variations in the way these liners are attached.
‘All-in-one’ nappies have an absorbent flap of liner which can be pulled out for washing, but remains stitched at one end to the rest of the nappy. Another option are ‘clip-ons’ which have the same substantial liners, but are completely removable. Then there’s a ‘prefold’, which is a square muslin or cotton cloth, which you then fasten a fabric wrap around.

Preloved
The loan from the Cloth Nappy Library confirmed for the couple that reusable were for them, so Letitia set bought her own batch.
“Every single nappy that Yari has is preloved,” she says, plonking her own box of nappies on the kitchen table. “Some people don’t like saying second hand – it’s pre-loved, except one – mammy bought her this one,” she says digging out one nappy from the container crammed with pristine, colourful nappies. “You can buy them in Aldi for €13-€14.”
“I would always say, ‘Don’t be squeamish, and buy second hand’ – you’re going to be washing them anyway. Whoever’s passing them on will have given them a good wash.
“It was trial and error to see which ones I wanted to settle with. I found the ‘all in ones’ [are best for her] – these are Bambino Mios,” she says of ones made from organic cotton. In her experience, they are “quite bullet proof – nothing gets out of them”.
Letitia uses two liners on top of the nappy, and also adds a fleece, which is so soft she encourages the Celt to feel it.
“She never complains,” says Letitia of Yari’s satisfaction with the disposable nappies.
Clips permit you to alter the size of the nappies as your child grows.
“If you see Yari there, it looks like she has a right big behind, that’s the thing I was worried about at the start - are they too bulky? But they’re not at all.”
She has had a great experience with reusable nappies, but cautions:
“Again if you are going to try cloth nappies be prepared that it’s not going to be perfect. You’re going to be out having dinner in a restaurant and go: ‘oh her trousers are wet’. So always bring a spare change of clothes just in case.”
The Celt notes that parents whose children use disposable nappies, would take the very same precaution.
Night time caused some annoyance for Yari.
“As she got bigger every morning she was soaked through. I was like, this is ridiculous. It was fresh pyjamas every night and a fresh vest every morning and then I discovered these ones,” she says pulling out another preloved nappy. “These are Totsbots – these are really expensive to buy brand new. You get a liner which button in on the inside. I would do two liners and a fleece and a waterproof wrap.”
She admits that’s a lot going on, but adds: “That’s for night time, you’re not doing that every time.”
Whilst the environment was the motivation for them choosing cloth nappies, the decision has proven financially prudent - especially when buying second hand. She estimates that she has spent between €300-400 on all the nappies, and bought the bulk of her nappies off a woman for €100.

Hands on
Let’s cut to the chase - the crux of the problem with reusable nappies is the fact that they demand much more hands-on involvement with poo. Most experienced parents can have the soiled nappy whipped off and binned, bum wiped, Sudocrem dabbed, and new nappy fastened in place in two minutes max (depending on the explosiveness factor).
Letitia gives a demo that reusable nappies are equally convenient when changing – she has the wet one off and a new one in place, while explaining how it all works in under a minute. There’s no real difference in changing nappies.

The vast difference comes when the disposable nappy user dumps their pooey one in the bin to never think about it again; Letitia and Finian put their soiled cloth nappy in the laundry bin to sort out on one of their regular wash nights. 
Their laundry bin has a lid, that Letitia assures, keeps odours contained. Inside it is lined with a ‘wet bag’, which is itself washable. Nappies are left no longer than three days, to prevent smells or moulds.
To make life easier there are disposable liners, which look like a babywipe, for placing inside the nappy to catch the bulk of the poo, and perforations allow pee to filter into the nappy’s liner. Letitia bought a packet, but the fact it remains half full shows she’s not convinced.
“I just thought they are such a waste – you’re throwing it in the bin,” she says, also surmising that they aren’t biodegradable: “There’s definitely plastic in it.”
Letitia and Finian have a system that works well for them.
“I find that the poo sticks really well to the fleece – I know that sounds disgusting. It actually sticks to it. So by the time it comes to get it out – I would use gloves, and just manoeuvre it, and most of the poo will come off.
“Some people scrape it, but you obviously have your designated knife for your nappies.
“Some people actually install shower hoses to the back of the toilet cistern and blast it off – I don’t think we’re set up for that here.
“Don’t get me wrong, with the fleece liners, we’ve had a few moments where I’ve been in the bathroom heaving, and Finian’s been like: I’ll do the next one.”
Finian, it turns out had “more of a stomach for it”, but Letitia insists on pulling her weight.
“If you just go”, she exhales like a weightlifter about to attempt a personal best, “bang, bang, bang – get most of the poo off, it’s fine. So if you are starting the journey, do be open minded.”
Washing
She also accepts that there’s a lot of washing involved. Environmentally conscientious when buying most things, Letitia and Finian invested in a refurbished Zanussi 8kg washing machine.
“You would want a good sized drum if you are going to do cloth nappies full time, to get your washes in. That machine cost us €170.”
“When I say loads of washing – it’s a [non-nappy] clothes wash on a Monday, you might have to do a nappy wash on a Tuesday, you might have to do another nappy wash on a Friday, because you don’t want to leave them in your bucket too long.”
She uses a long life detergent device Ecalled an Ecoball for clothes that just need a freshen up, and for the nappies she finds Aldi’s bio detergent powder effective.
“It’s gritty, it gets in and around it.”
They don’t have a tumble dryer and she is reluctant to dry clothing indoors, so they use clothes horses under a shelter if needed, in the back garden. It helps to freshen them up too.

Flushing the pipes
Every so often she gives the nappies a strip wash, which is a rinse, a wash, and another rinse, all at 60 degrees. The Zanussi needs a little TLC too:
“Maybe once a month I would have put soda crystals through the wash, and cleaned out the washing machine. Or you can do a 90 degree wash if you want but I thought 60 degree was fine just to wash out the pipes, because there will be poo and stuff like that stuck in them.”
Given the amount of washing, she questioned herself on how energy efficient reusable nappies could be, but found comfort in online stats that claim from manufacture to use, disposable nappies use 3.5 times as much energy as cloth nappies, and produce 2.3 times as much waste water. The figures confirm what she felt instinctively: “If you reuse something, you are going to lessen the impact. You are not filling the landfill, which was something that was really important to me.
“Instead of putting two bags of nappies in the landfill every week - I can see a line of nappies that I am going to reuse again.”
The Celt asks about compostable nappies as possibly a more convenient, eco-friendly option  – but Letitia’s not convinced.
“Where would you put them? You can’t just put them piled up on your compost heap – we have a compost heap out there and there’s no way you could start packing that with nappies.
“When I saw them I thought, no you’re still basically throwing out nappies.”

Wipes
Disposable baby wipes are another recognised environmental scourge. Letitia instead opts for reusable wipes, essentially mini facecloths made of organic cotton. She bought 25 for €10. Her resourceful mother-in-law made them a batch from old towels on which she sewed a hem.
“They’re a bit rough to feel when they’re dry, but once you wet them they’re fine,” says Letitia.
If she’s dealing with a poo-ey nappy, she’ll wet three of the wipes to tackle it. They go straight into the bucket and washed along with the nappies at 60 degrees.
She also uses bigger facecloths instead of wipes to clean Yari’s face – and they are in the normal wash basket.
She correctly observes that parents rattle through “packets and packets of wipes” and concludes: “The little bit of the nuisance that it might be – I think the benefits are so much better for the environment.”
For a hesitant parent who is interested in cutting back on disposable items for their baby/toddler, she believes face wipes and bum wipes are “a good starting point”.
“Have a little wet bag so you are only doing one little wash with dirty cloths – see how you get on then. Maybe start with one cloth nappy a day. Can you manage one, just to see – or on the weekends?”

Diet
The reusable nappies fit neatly into their household’s general eco-friendly ethos, another aspect of which was their diet. Letitia and Finian were both meat eaters until they watched an American documentary called Earthlings examining humans’ treatment of animals. It proved hard to stomach. The couple are now pescatarian, including Yari; Letitia is borderline vegetarian.
“I’m one of those ones: I want to know why should I not eat meat? Give me a reason. For me it was ethical reasons. 
“We did find it tough – for the first six months I craved chicken burgers like there was no tomorrow. But now Quorn do [meat free] chicken burgers and chicken nuggets.”
While she’s content with her lifestyle choices, she’s eager not to come across to others as preachy.
“I’m not saying, ‘You can’t eat meat, but if you are coming here for a meal, it’s going to be vegetarian or pescatarian.’ That’s the kind of way we are. So I try not to push it on people, but I will if someone’s curious – I will go to town and tell them, ‘You should try this’. ‘What about this?’”
Similarly she is eager not to preach to parents about nappies, but will happily share her experience if someone is interested:
“I can be very much: come in and see what’s going on. I will be honest with people, same as breast feeding – people are like, ‘How was it?’

“It is going to be sore – it’s sore for the first month. So I think if you’re honest with people about it and say, this was tough to get used to, for the first few weeks.”
It’s hard not to be impressed by the family’s commitment to eco-friendliness – she reluctantly accepts a little credit.
“I often say to people, ‘We’re trying to be sustainable but I don’t think we’re great’. 
“They’re like: you’re kidding me, you’re doing cloth nappies – that’s huge! I’m like, ‘It actually is’. So I do actually feel good about doing it.”
And so she should.