Reduce, Reuse and Recycle with Reusable nappies made from plastic waste.

Plastic Fantastic news for British Nappy Company (or From Bottles to Bottoms for British Nappy Company)

TotsBots, a Glasgow based firm, are the first company in the world to make reusable nappies out of plastic bottles. With ever growing concern for the environment and as the war on plastic gathers momentum, this is great news for parents who want to minimise their environmental impact; now they can reduce their single use plastic and recycle, one reusable nappy change at a time.

The waterproof outer fabric (the essential part that keeps all the wetness in) was previously knitted using virgin polyester yarn but will now be made from recycled polyester from plastic bottles. There will be on average 2 bottles diverted from landfill with every TotsBots nappy. The new fabric was specially developed for TotsBots and it is Oekotex 100 (class 1) certified. This means that there are no harmful chemicals or residues present and is the highest safety certification for garments worn by babies next to their sensitive skin.

Director Fiona Smyth said, “We are so excited to be the first reusable nappy company in the world to be doing this. It gives parents an even better reason to choose cloth nappies over disposables now. With over 8 million nappies going to landfill every day, if even half of parents switched to cloth that would be a whole lot of plastic bottles and nappy waste being diverted from landfill. We really hope this will inspire other companies to follow suit. The technology is here and there is certainly enough plastic waste here so there is no reason why this shouldn’t become the norm.”

She continued “Over the last 3 years we have seen a marked increase in parents opting for cloth nappies as their preferred choice for their babies; concerns about the environment, chemicals in disposables and guilt about over-consumption are behind this. Modern cloth nappies are not the terry squares and plastic pants of our grandparents’ days. They come in all shapes, colours and sizes and are so much easier to use than people fear. Parents are always amazed at how well they work and how easy they are.”

As part of the Scottish Government’s war on waste, TotsBots were recently chosen to supply the cloth nappy voucher in the baby box. Magnus, who designs all the nappies now, came up with a tiny little nappy specifically for use on new-born babies, and early uptake figures are very promising showing 14% of parents are choosing to try the nappies out. This is higher than the national UK average of 10%.

TotsBots has already started phasing in the new recycled fabric and hopes to have made the complete switch over by October this year. The new nappies will be easily identifiable with a little recycled nappy logo showing how many bottles per garment have been diverted from landfill. As single use plastic becomes more and more unpopular, this is a trend that will continue to grow too especially once the news that in addition to diverting 5-6 plastic nappies being thrown to landfill each day, parents can now divert 10- 12 plastic bottles from landfill too, one poop at a time!

Stockists: www.totsbots.com