Real Nappy Week

That the Parliament welcomes the launch on Sunday 11 March 2007 of Real Nappy Week, an annual event to encourage the use of real nappies, to engage with parents and to enable them to make informed choices about the nappies that their babies use; congratulates, in addition to the coordinators of Real Nappy Week, the Women’s Environmental Network (WEN), and the sponsors, Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), the many parents across Scotland who have chosen to use real washable nappies instead of disposables; notes that across the United Kingdom some eight million disposable nappies go to landfill each day, where they will remain for years, and that this represents a serious environmental issue as well as a waste of the resources used in the manufacture of the nappies; further notes therefore that, in addition to the financial savings of around £500 per child, there are also very significant environmental benefits to be gained through the use of real nappies instead of disposables, and calls on the Scottish Executive to increase the resources available to local authority-run real nappy voucher schemes and to encourage across Scotland the use of real nappies in the interests of parents and children now and in the future.