NappyLoop, the nursery-first cloth nappy service

Aim

The UK bins 10 million nappies every day. NappyLoop aims to make cloth nappies mainstream with a nursery-first subscription service.

Hi, I'm Elisabeth, and for the last few years, I've been obsessed with nappies. Not because I thought they were exciting (that would be weird), but because I was angry. Angry at a system that makes it almost impossible for parents to make a sustainable choice, and angry at the massive multinationals making $$$ keeping our kids - and the world they'll inherit - wrapped up in throwaway plastic.

As an environmental campaigner, when my first child was born, I wanted to use cloth nappies. But I wasn't prepared for how hard I would find becoming a Mum. I gave up on cloth then, not because I wasn't motivated, but because it seemed like there was so much to learn and do, and my capacity to deal with complexity had fallen through the floor.

I felt so guilty.

When my second child came along, I was working in the senior team at a cloth nappy brand, and had both more confidence in how to use cloth, but also more confidence as a Mum. That time round, I managed it.

But my journey taught me a fundamental truth: we can't keep asking individual parents to make their lives harder in order to do the right thing. Parents are stressed and overwhelmed enough as it is. We need to change the system itself. 

That's when the idea for NappyLoop was born: a nursery-first cloth nappy subscription service.

How does a cloth nappy subscription service for nurseries work?

For a monthly fee, nurseries receive twice-weekly deliveries of clean, 100% organic cotton cloth nappies. The dirties are taken away to be washed and dried to NHS hygiene standards by local commercial laundries. The service is hassle-free and is cost-competitive with branded nappies and "compostable" nappies (spoiler - they're getting incinerated, not composted). It positions nurseries as hubs of sustainability in their local communities.

And it doesn't stop there. Once a nursery is on board, they can offer the service to families who can drop off and collect their nappies when they do the nursery run with their kids.

A Cloth Nappy Designed for Nurseries & Commercial Laundries

Last summer, I ran a trial with a nursery in Cambridge, where I live, testing two different kinds of cloth nappy already on the market. The service worked well, the laundry was spotless, and the parents loved it. But the nappies - designed for home use and home laundering - were either too time consuming for staff or not absorbent enough.

So, alongside my manufacturing and design partner, we went back to the drawing board and designed our own nappy, purpose-built to withstand the rigours of a commercial laundry, be super quick to change, and absorbent enough for even the heaviest wetter. It’s the first cloth nappy available in the UK that's been designed with commercial laundries and nurseries specifically in mind.

Now, we're running a trial with four nurseries that could prove that cloth nappies in nurseries can scale

This is the make or break moment. I've secured a trial with a progressive nursery group at four of their locations, starting in just a few weeks. We'll be testing our new nappy for the first time at scale in a nursery setting. And if the trial goes well, the nursery has already committed to rolling out the service across all 18 of their settings.

I'm in discussions with several other nurseries that are ready to join us. The momentum is building, and this is our chance to prove that cloth nappies can work at scale in nursery settings.

Just during the trial alone, we'll be preventing 7,500 single-use nappies from being binned. That's 1.7 tonnes of waste, the equivalent to the weight of an adult hippo!

If this nursery rolls out to their whole group, every year we'll save:

• 🚛 390,000 nappies (enough to fill 39 rubbish trucks)
• 🐘 82 tonnes of waste (the weight of 14 elephants)
• 🚗 35 tonnes of CO2 (like driving three and a half times round the Earth)

Anything you can donate will contribute directly, not just to this impact, but to supporting us reaching many other nurseries and creating even more impact.

Where Your Money Goes

Your pledge isn't just a donation to fund one trial; it's a direct investment in making cloth a viable mainstream choice.

Here's a clear breakdown of exactly what your money will be spent on:

1. Nappy purchase and hire: £6,000

This is the biggest chunk of our spend. This money will be used to purchase the durable, purpose-built nappy stock for the trial (and beyond, should the trial prove successful), and hire some additional nappy stock to test against it. 

2. Laundry service: £2,500

This part of the budget covers the actual laundering, collection and delivery of the nappies by our trusted laundry partner. A family business, they have years of experience laundering nappies to NHS hygiene standards.

3. Other equipment: £1,500

For the system to run smoothly, hygienically, and efficiently, we need more than just nappies. This part of the budget funds the equipment that makes the service work seamlessly for the nurseries and our laundry partner.

Support NappyLoop, and choose changes to be proud of

Every pound you contribute helps us put nappies in nurseries, not in landfill. This crowdfunder isn't just about money; it’s about giving us the tools to prove that a large-scale, sustainable nappy solution is not only possible but commercially viable. Your support closes our funding gap and launches the NappyLoop revolution for good.

Please, join our journey. Help us prove that a nappy revolution is possible.

Thank you 🙏

Stay in touch

You can email me on [email protected] or find me on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/elisabethjane/

You can find NappyLoop online at:

https://nappyloop.co.uk/

https://www.instagram.com/nappy_loop/

https://www.facebook.com/nappyloop/

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made