Disposable diapers: the plastic, the chemicals and the cloth question

A baby needs about as many diaper changes in two and a half years as there are pages in a decent encyclopedia set. Most parents in rich countries reach for disposables, and almost nobody stops to ask what’s in them, because there’s a baby screaming.

This piece covers the diaper itself: what it’s made of, where it goes, what the chemical findings actually showed, whether cloth is really greener, and what to make of “eco” packaging. For the bigger picture on babies and plastic (bottles, toys, food, sleep), see our parent’s guide. For the wipes that come with every change, see our wet wipes article.

What a disposable diaper is made of

A disposable diaper is a small engineered sandwich, and most of its layers are plastic. The UK Environment Agency’s 2005 study describes a polypropylene top sheet that protects skin from wetness, a core of fluff pulp and superabsorbent polymer, a polyethylene back sheet against leaks, and tapes, elastics and adhesives. The superabsorbent polymer (SAP) is sodium polyacrylate, which the same study traces back to acrylic acid production. Some brands add lotion or fragrance.

The UK Environment Agency’s 2005 study averaged the diapers on sale in 2001–02. Each weighed 44.64 g, of which 42.77% was fluff pulp, 27.63% SAP, 15.25% polypropylene and 7.74% low-density polyethylene. By the time Defra updated the study in 2023, using industry data from 2020–21, diapers had slimmed down to 33.8 g, and the balance had flipped: SAP was 39.09% of the weight, fluff pulp 25.66% and polypropylene 22.15%. So the modern diaper is lighter, but more of it is plastic.

SAP is the clever part: it soaks up urine and holds it as a gel. It’s also the part that makes “plastic-free disposable diaper” close to a contradiction. In the 2023 study, SAP production and end-of-life treatment together accounted for up to about 69% of the impacts in the categories where disposables came out worse.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because pads are built the same way. See our period products article.

How many diapers one child uses

The UK Environment Agency surveyed parents and sales data and settled on an average of 4.16 changes a day, or 3,796 disposable diapers over a child’s first two and a half years. That’s an average across children who stop at different ages, so a newborn uses many more a day and a toddler fewer. The 2023 update kept the same 3,796 figure. It also noted that children seem to be potty trained later than they used to be: in a YouGov survey commissioned by a reusable-nappy company, which it cites, 37% of children in disposables and 35% in reusables were still in diapers at two and a half. The two-and-a-half-year count is a floor, not a ceiling.

At 2023 weights, that’s 128.36 kg of disposable diapers per child before anyone has used them.

Where used diapers go

Nowhere good, and nowhere that recycles them.

In the US, the EPA estimated that disposable diapers made up 4.1 million tons of municipal waste in 2018, or 1.4% of the total. That figure includes adult incontinence products and the urine and faeces inside the diapers. Of it, 3.3 million tons went to landfill and 0.8 million tons were burned with energy recovery, and the EPA found no significant recycling or composting. US landfills took about 146.1 million tons of municipal waste that year, so diapers were roughly 2% of everything landfilled (our arithmetic).

In the UK, the 2005 study estimated disposable diapers at 2–3% of household waste, about 400,000 tonnes a year. The 2023 study assumed 78% are now incinerated and 22% landfilled, and found that the shift to incineration had pushed up the climate footprint of disposal. Diaper recycling technology exists, but the study said it isn’t widely available in the UK and no data were available to model its benefits.

A diaper in landfill doesn’t vanish. A diaper in an incinerator turns its plastic into carbon dioxide. Neither turns it back into a diaper.

What the chemical tests found

In January 2019, France’s health and safety agency, ANSES, published a risk assessment built on lab tests of 23 diaper products, including best-sellers, shop own-brands and “eco” diapers. Under what it called realistic conditions of use, its estimated exposures exceeded safety thresholds for two fragrances (butylphenyl methylpropional, sold as Lilial, and hydroxyisohexyl 3-cyclohexene carboxaldehyde, or Lyral), certain PAHs, PCB-126, and dioxins, furans and dioxin-like PCBs. The fragrance result came from one of the 19 products analysed for them. ANSES’s conclusion was that a health risk “could not be ruled out”, not that one had been shown. The fragrances were added on purpose. The other substances are contaminants, likely from raw materials or manufacturing. ANSES told makers to stop using all fragrances, control raw materials better, and push for stricter EU rules.

A few important caveats:

• This was a risk assessment, not a study of sick babies. ANSES measured chemicals in diapers and modelled how much might reach a baby’s skin and body. In its own words, there are “no epidemiological data demonstrating an association between health effects and the wearing of diapers”.
• It was challenged. A 2022 re-analysis argued the assessment was flawed and that Swiss data suggested PAH levels had been overestimated by two to three orders of magnitude. That paper was funded by EDANA, the trade association for the nonwovens and disposables industry, which doesn’t make it wrong but is worth knowing.
• The EU didn’t act. In December 2020, ANSES proposed an EU-wide restriction on almost 200 substances, including PAHs, dioxins, furans, PCBs and formaldehyde, in single-use diapers. The European Chemicals Agency’s scientific committees declined to back it in 2021. As the European Commission later summarised it, the risk assessment committee found the restriction not justified “because the risk could not be demonstrated for some of the substances and could not be characterised for others”, while still recommending the substances be kept as low as feasible. In 2022 the Commission said it would not propose the restriction, pointing instead to existing EU limits on PAHs, planned limits on trace contaminants such as PCBs, and a planned wider ban on carcinogens and reproductive toxicants in childcare products. As of November 2026, we found no diaper-specific EU limit on these contaminants.

Later studies point the same way: measurable chemicals, uncertain risk.

• A US study of 31 diapers and wipes found benzene and 1,4-dioxane in baby diapers, with a lifetime cancer risk approaching 1 in a million only under a worst-case scenario. Products labelled “organic” or “for sensitive skin” didn’t necessarily have lower levels.
• A Chinese study of 66 infants found phthalates in diapers, a weak correlation between dibutyl phthalate in the diaper and its breakdown product in the baby’s urine, and an estimate that diapers supplied 7.76% to 44.9% of babies’ intake of four phthalates. It’s one observational study. For what phthalates do and where most exposure comes from, see our phthalates explainer.
• A Turkish study of 39 diapers found phthalates in all layers but concluded the exposure did not pose a risk for babies.
• A 2024 review judged the risk acceptable in most scenarios, higher under some extreme ones, and said everyone’s estimates rest on shaky numbers for how much actually moves from diaper to skin.

The honest summary: diapers contain trace contaminants, risk models disagree about whether the amounts matter, and no study has shown harm to babies. The one clear, cheap step is fragrance. ANSES singled out added scents, and fragrance does nothing for the baby.

Is cloth better for the planet?

Less obviously than you’d hope, and it depends almost entirely on your washing machine.

The UK Environment Agency’s 2005 study compared disposables, cloth washed at home and cloth from a laundry service. It found no significant difference between any of the environmental impacts. Disposables’ burden came from making them. Cloth’s came from the electricity used to wash and dry it.

The 2008 update put numbers on that. An average 2006 disposable system came to 550 kg of CO2 equivalent over two and a half years, and shaped cloth with average washing and drying came to 570 kg. Then came the part that matters for parents:

• Fuller loads or line drying cut cloth’s footprint by 16%.
• Doing that and reusing the diapers on a second child cut it by 40%.
• Always tumble drying raised it by 43%, and adding 90°C washes raised it by 75%.

In the agency’s words, “It is consumers’ behaviour that dictates the environmental impact of reusable nappies.”

The 2023 update, with a cleaner UK grid and more efficient machines, found a real gap on climate: 456.91 kg CO2e for disposables and 344.57 kg for reusables, about a quarter less for cloth. But across 18 impact categories, disposables did worse in 7 and reusables in 11, mostly because of electricity for washing and drying, detergent and wastewater. The data came from the trade bodies on both sides, disposable makers and reusable makers, and both sat on the review panel.

There’s a plastic catch, too. The “reusable nappy system” modelled in 2023 was 39.9% microfibre polyester and 5.12% polyurethane by weight, with bamboo viscose and cotton making up most of the rest. Modern cloth diapers are often synthetic fabric with a plastic-laminated cover, and synthetic fabric sheds microfibres in the wash. Cloth means far less plastic going in the bin, not no plastic.

“Biodegradable” and “eco” diapers

Some diapers are sold as biodegradable, plant-based or eco. Three things to know.

First, the superabsorbent core. We found no widely sold disposable without a synthetic SAP, and that core is the bulk of the plastic. A diaper with a bamboo top sheet and a polyacrylate core is a plastic diaper in a nicer outfit.

Second, “biodegradable” depends on where the diaper ends up, and in the US and UK that’s landfill or an incinerator. The US Federal Trade Commission’s Green Guides say unqualified degradable claims are deceptive for items customarily disposed of in landfills, incinerators and recycling facilities, because those places don’t let items decompose completely within a year. Our compostable and biodegradable plastics article explains why the label rarely matches what happens to the product.

Third, “natural” and “sensitive” labels aren’t chemistry. In the US VOC study, products labelled organic or for sensitive skin didn’t necessarily have lower levels.

Under our product standard, single-use products are disqualified unless every part is plastic-free, so no disposable diaper we know of would pass, eco or not.

Diaper services

A diaper service drops off clean cloth diapers, takes away dirty ones and launders them in bulk. The 2005 UK study included one and found it no better or worse overall than disposables or home washing, with the laundry’s energy and the van deliveries as the main burdens. The 2023 update left commercial laundries out, saying they no longer reflect how most families use cloth. So there’s no recent evidence either way. A service mainly saves you the washing, which, given the numbers above, isn’t nothing.

What actually helps

Ranked by how solid the evidence is:

1. If you use cloth, wash full loads, keep washes below 60°C and line dry when you can. This is the best-evidenced lever in the whole debate, and it decides whether cloth beats disposables on climate (2008 study).
2. Use the same cloth diapers on the next child, or pass them on. Combined with fuller loads or line drying, reuse cut cloth’s footprint by 40% in the 2008 study; on its own it cut it by about 6.5% in the 2023 model.
3. Prefer cloth made of natural fibres. Cotton, hemp or wool inserts and covers avoid the polyester that sheds in the wash. This is our reading of the materials data, not something the life cycle studies tested.
4. Choose fragrance-free disposables. Fragrances were the only intentionally added chemicals ANSES flagged, and they add nothing (ANSES).
5. Mix and match without guilt. Cloth at home and disposables for nights or travel still cuts the number in the bin. We found no study on part-time cloth, so this is common sense rather than evidence.
6. Ignore “biodegradable” on a diaper headed for the bin. It’s a claim about conditions it won’t meet (FTC).

What we can’t tell you: whether trace contaminants in diapers harm babies. The evidence so far is risk modelling and a handful of measurements, and the experts disagree. If that worries you, cloth or fragrance-free disposables are reasonable precautions. A dry, comfortable baby matters more.

Common questions

Should I flush the poo before binning a disposable?

It’s the usual hygiene advice, and Defra’s 2023 study checked the environmental side: flushing faeces cut the climate footprint by 2.7% but raised marine eutrophication by 38% because of the extra water and sewage. Small either way.

For our product rules, see our standards. More in Baby & kids.