Life Cycle Analysis

In 1991 two life cycle studies were carried out by Lentz (7) and Little (8) both funded by Proctor and Gamble a leading disposable nappy company. The WEN commissioned a critique from the Landbank Consultancy (9)which showed that the earlier studies had concentrated on the use stage, not focussing on the manufacture and disposal part of the nappys life. The results of this study are shown below:

Source : Wen

You can see from the table that the Landbank study shows that disposable nappies use 3.5 times as much energy, 8 times as much non-regenerable raw materials and 90 times as much renewable material as reusable nappies.

They produce 2.3 times as much waste water and 60 times as much solid waste, and require between 4 and 30 times as much land for growing natural materials as reusable nappies.

The study also showed that both systems used similar amounts of fossil fuel energy. (Ann Link WEN 2003)