Under the headline 'Nappy Mountain Growing Concern' The Press yesterday talks about someone's concern over disposable nappies in the landfill.
Let's get a few things straight. A pile of nappies in the ground is a mine, not a mountain. It would be a mountain if we dug them out of the ground and piled them up 1000m or so into the sky. This would be an enormous undertaking, but I wouldnt be surprised if environmentalists would try it if they could.
Secondly the article suggests it is a 'growing' concern. However it contradicts this by saying that the use of cloth nappies is increasing, which suggests that whatever problem exists is in fact reducing.
Thirdly it is giving free publicity to a crackpot outfit called New Zealand Nappy Alliance, the head of which (Kate Meads) is a distributor for cloth nappies. This contributes to the bogus 'environment is a disaster' message that environmentalists want us to believe.
Finally it says that 96% of all nappy changes in New Zealand are disposable. Better than throwing out the carpet I'd say. We bought a full set of cloth nappies, buckets, nappy san and everything, and it didn't last a week. I was pretty keen, and tried to encourage my wife to try it, even offering to clean the nappies, etc. But the first liquid black ooze that sprayed out the sides was reason enough to pack that in and my stubbornness evaporated.
Kate Meads (who I'm sure has never had liquid pooh on her carpet) says:
You are talking about a million nappies going into the landfills every day.
So what? Stick a cork up the baby's bum, or live with it! What else are we going to do with rubbish dumps? Rubbish is exactly what our dumps are for.
Better still, why don't we stop over breeding and thus the need for any sort of nappy will be reduced. A spinoff of self imposed progeny capping could be the limiting of the excess spawning of future generations so saving the planet from more than just their initial excrement capture crisis.
Posted by: labbit99 | April 11, 2008 at 08:28 AM
I think the wise woman in Black Adder said it all.
Edmund: No. And the third [cunning plan]?
Wisewoman: The third is to ensure that no one else ever knows.
Edmund: Ha, that sounds more like it. How?
Wisewoman: Kill everybody in the whole world. Ah, ha, ha ...
She was an environmentalist of course.
Posted by: The Optimist | April 11, 2008 at 01:18 PM