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["Warren" <mogrits AT gmail.com>]

With younger brothers in the house, I grew up with cloth diapers soaking in
bleach. I detested them so much we used disposables on our kids. Turns out
that was the responsible path:

"Blow to image of 'green' reusable nappy
Marie Woolf, Whitehall Editor

A government report that found old-fashioned reusable nappies damage the
environment more than disposables has been hushed up because ministers are
embarrassed by its findings.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has
instructed civil servants not to publicise the conclusions of the ?50,000
nappy research project and to adopt a "defensive" stance towards its
conclusions.

The report found that using washable nappies, hailed by councils throughout
Britain as a key way of saving the planet, have a higher carbon footprint
than their disposable equivalents unless parents adopt an extreme approach
to laundering them.

To reduce the impact of cloth nappies on climate change parents would have
to hang wet nappies out to dry all year round, keep them for years for use
on younger children, and make sure the water in their washing machines does
not exceed 60C.

The conclusions will upset proponents of real nappies who have claimed they
can help save the planet.

Restricted Whitehall documents, seen by The Sunday Times, show that the
government is so concerned by the "negative laundry options" outlined in the
report, it has told its media managers not to give its conclusions any
publicity.

The report found that while disposable nappies used over 2? years would have
a global warming , impact of 550kg of CO2 reusable nappies produced 570kg of
CO2 on average. But if parents used tumble dryers and washed the reusable
nappies at 90C, the impact could spiral to . 993kg of CO2 A Defra spokesman
said the government was shelving plans for future research on nappies. "

source http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4969413.ece