Scientists are urging parents to start potty training their children earlier, arguing that nappies are harming the environment. Around the world, approximately 300,000 nappies are thrown away every minute, according to the researchers.
Absorbent hygiene products, known as AHPs, include nappies, incontinence products and period products. Together they account for 160 to 200 million tonnes of waste each year, and more than 99 per cent of that is dumped into landfills or burned, contributing to plastic pollution, contaminating water and air, and spreading disease.
Meanwhile, the average age of toilet training in the UK has risen from two years and four months in the 1950s to just over three years in the 2000s, a 32 per cent increase over five decades that has pushed millions more nappies into the environment.
Lead author Dr Elze Porte, of University College London, told the Daily Mail that if children were toilet trained earlier, the number of nappies used and thrown away could be reduced drastically. She said using fewer nappies is better for the environment, saves families money, and may help with children's bladder and bowel health.
Why nappies are so hard to recycle
Modern nappies combine fibres, plastics and super-absorbent materials, and they are almost always contaminated with human waste and medical products, making them one of the main sources of plastic waste globally. Existing recycling technologies recover only a small part of the original materials even at their most efficient.
In countries with adequate waste collection, the remaining waste typically goes to landfill or is destroyed in incinerators. In many lower-income countries, nappies and other hygiene products are simply dumped or burned in the streets, creating a serious pollution risk.
Dr Porte said this makes absorbent hygiene products a major, yet largely unrecognised, contributor to the plastic waste crisis. The findings were published in the journal Nature Sustainability, where the researchers suggest that reducing the number of nappies used by toilet training children sooner is one of the simplest ways to tackle the problem.
Children are being toilet trained later
Recent research suggests the opposite trend is underway, with parents potty training their children later and later. One team of researchers in the United States found that only 40 to 60 per cent of children had completed toilet training by 36 months.
A 2024 survey of teachers in England and Wales found that one in four school starters were not toilet trained. The survey's authors acknowledged this presents challenges for parents due to a lack of guidance, time pressures on caregivers, and the perceived convenience of disposable products.
Incontinence products add to the waste
Nappies are not the only source of the problem. Dr Porte said around 14 million people in the UK experience incontinence, many of whom use disposable incontinence products.
She said that with a growing and ageing population, the problem is only getting worse, so it is important to act now to reduce waste and find more sustainable solutions for the waste that cannot be avoided. Since these people cannot avoid needing such products, the researchers argue the industry needs to make AHPs easier to recycle and develop fully compostable alternatives.
Dr Porte said the research shows this is not a problem with a single solution, and that it requires coordinated changes across behaviour, technology, materials and policy.
The wider plastic recycling shortfall
The scale of the nappy problem echoes broader gaps in UK recycling. Of the 30 billion plastic bottles used by UK households each year, only 57 per cent are currently recycled, with the rest going to landfill or ending up as waste, and around 700,000 plastic bottles a day end up as litter.
The UK also throws away 2.5 billion paper cups every year, amounting to 5,000 cups a minute, of which less than 0.4 per cent are recycled. Most cups are made from cardboard with a thin layer of plastic that has previously posed recycling problems but can now be removed, and five specialist recycling plants in the UK have the capacity to recycle all the cups used on high streets, though ensuring the cups reach those plants remains one of the biggest challenges.
