Becoming Domestic

A slightly shocking discovery was made this week when an eBay seller told me she had been made to stop an auction of her pre-loved washable nappies as eBay authorities deem them too unhygenic to sell.

As a member of the keen-to-be-green community I had made my mind up that we would use washable nappies with our expected new arrival and, like most of the things we buy, I didn’t want to buy new as I know that there must be piles of outgrown expensive, high quality, reusable nappies looking for a new home.

I had already begun to wonder why there were no bundles of used nappies being sold on eBay until eventually I spotted the reason in this sellers description. She and I entered into a dialogue and she told me how the site had fairly recently changed its policy on the selling of reusable nappies.

My first reaction was to think ‘Oh how ridiculous! Fine then I’ll just have to set up my own auction website for the sale of 2nd hand nappies and related paraphanelia!’ but after a very small amount of research was pretty relieved to find that a woman who had made the same discovery as me regarding eBay’s rules had done just that and has set up the website

http://www.usednappies.co.uk/

A site dedicated to those wishing to sell on or buy used nappies. It certainly makes a lot of sense.

I don’t know the actual story behind eBay’s radical stance on real nappies (perhaps the eBay directors also sit on the board of Pampers & Huggies manufacturers…). My immediate reaction was one of dismay when I realised I wouldn’t able to buy them as I had planned because the sorts of people committing to using real nappies are exactly the sorts of people who are keen to save this country from being gradually turned into one large rubbish tip and to be disincentivised from recycling via passing on or selling nearly new nappies to new owners defeats the whole object.

If one doesn’t know where to buy second hand nappies despite good intentions one is forced to buy brand new stock which aside from being a huge expense (approx £200 to kit new baby out in enough washable nappies to last until it is potty trained I’m told) is not exactly following the ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ mantra we are told to chant. It is promoting the production and consumption of new goods. If one can’t sell on the £200 or so worth of nappies at the end of the infant’s babydom then they will be forced to be dumped in landfill just like the filthy disposables we are told take up so much landfill space. Also surely if there is a healthy second hand market then less people would mind shelling out the initial investment for pristine new nappies if they new they would recoup at least a small bit of cash for them in a few years time.

Grrrrr!

Before I found UsedNappies.co.uk I was left wondering where I could get my hands on such contraband and wrote a ranty ‘WANTED’ post to my local Freecyle network. A few blessed soles wrote back to me and this afternoon I was delighted to relieve a couple of women of their bags full of pretty, clean, freshly laundered nappies. The are about 20 or so nappies of makes I have heard of (Kooshies, Mother-Ease) so I figure I have already saved a good £150 by not being forced to buy them new.

The woman who originally told me that she was not able to sell her used nappies is selling a couple + liners to me privately for £7 and next week there is an NCT nearly-new sale which apparently specialises in maternity, baby and child related items. I will have a word with the organisers to see if they can promote the resale of second hand washable nappies in the absence of well known eBay’s help.

Posted on September 28th, 2007 under Baby and Pregnancy, Being Green, Frugal living • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback