Nappies and landfill – Kimberly-Clark sets the record straight

16 November 2005

Recent media articles have called for disposable nappies to be actively banned from landfill, due to their fæcal content. Such calls are misleading and largely unhelpful.

In reality, landfills contain numerous other fæcal-related products including sewage waste and council waste. (Consider your council’s encouragement for you to collect your dogs’ fæces from public areas and put them in the waste bin – this all goes to landfill.)

Independent tests have repeatedly demonstrated that there is no hazard to public health resulting from nappy disposal in household waste.

Landfill is also made up of large proportions of commercial, industrial and building/demolition waste. In fact, nappies make up only about 1% of all landfill waste.

Forcing families to find alternatives for disposing of their dirty nappies is not the solution, nor are inefficient attempts at recycling individual waste streams. Kimberly-Clark’s strategy is to reduce the impact of the production and disposal of nappies on the environment – for the long term.

Our nappies are around 65% degradable, and the pulp fibres are from 100% renewable sources. Our production processes are highly environmentally friendly, based on the most stringent international standards (ISO 14001).

Research has also found that cloth nappies are not more environmentally friendly than disposables – in fact, there is no environmental difference between cloth and disposable nappies.