• Cloth nappies cost between £100-£400 as opposed to disposable at £800-£1,200 for the 2.5 years of normal nappy use.

• 3 billion nappies are thrown away in the UK each year with 90% going to landfill. They can take up to 500 years to decompose.

• Disposables make up 4% of total household waste and up to 50% of that of families with one baby

• Disposable nappies use up to 5 times more energy to produce than cotton ones – that's including the washing process .

• Seven million trees are felled every year in Canada and Scandinavia to supply the pulp for disposables sold in the UK.

Nappies use a type of polymer in their lining.

Sodium poly(acrylate) absorbs 500 times its own mass of water.

One of the Surprising Properties of Polymers

Chemical Background

Sodium polyacrylate is a polymer with a molecular weight of over one million!

Groups called sodium carboxylate are attached along the backbone.

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