Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to increase the use of reusable nappies, and to make suppliers of single-use nappies pay the full cost of their disposal.

In 2023 Defra published a Life Cycle Assessment of disposable and reusable nappies which looked at disposable and reusable nappies across 18 equally-weighted environmental impact categories (Science Search (defra.gov.uk).

The assessment showed that while disposable nappies have a slightly higher global warming potential, reusable nappies have a higher environmental impact in other ways. As there is no clear consensus on whether reusable or disposable nappies are better for the environment the Department has no plans to take policy action on nappies at this time.