Starting Mama Bamboo my goal was simple but profound: to combat the massive heaps of plastic waste generated during a baby's formative years. Plastic that, beyond damaging our planet's health, is detrimental to our children's health and well-being.
Our current system is failing us and our environment. In the UK alone, 3 billion plastic nappies, representing around 4% of all household waste, is sent to landfills and incinerators every year. Plant-based alternatives that deliver the same performance and functionality are available and they can be safely composted at end-of-life offering a fully ciruclar, less damaging impact to the planet. But big brands are bombarding us with the notion that continuing our reliance on virgin plastic and forcing our government to invest further in recycling is the answer. Unfortunately, this narrative falls short of the truth.
The recycle/downcycle process still looks like this:
1 - continue to extract oil and manufacture a product for single use
2 - “recycle” it into a lower-value material - known as downcycling
3 - ultimately dispose of it anyway at the end of its second life.
At best, recycling/downcycling slows the take-make-waste journey. It doesn’t change the destination.
Only compostable, plant-based nappies can change the destination.
Using natural materials like bamboo, cotton, paper and corn starch, these products are compatible with existing composting systems. The final barrier has always been SAP — but thanks to innovators like Planet Smart, that challenge has also been overcome. It has been proven that a mix of mechanical and enzymatic processing can safely break down the entire product within a short timeframe.
A 100% certified compostable nappy is now within widely available commercial reach. But big brands still won't change without incentive. We need the government to implement comprehensive policies today to force the big brands to invest in these innovative compostable materials for their products and stop the use of single-use plastic.
In 2024, the public was collectively successful in getting a nationwide ban on the use of plastic in wet wipe production. Now it's time to use that same collective power to ban the use the plastic in nappy production.
Please join us and sign our petition to ban single-use plastic in nappy manufacturing. Your signature could be the changing force in this critical conversation.
Petition · Ban Single-Use Plastic in Nappies - United Kingdom · Change.org
