Piles of sh*t — solutions to Africa’s nappy pollution crisis

Indigenous stockmen in rural Matatiele were in a bind. Their herds were taking a beating because of a grim form of plastic pollution: soiled disposable nappies littering the communal veld and streams where their animals grazed. 

[Read Piles of Sh*t Part 1 and Part 2.]

Cattle were eating some of the plastic, which can cause potentially lethal snarl-ups in the gut. Untreated human faeces lying about also drives the tapeworm cycle, making their cattle too high-risk for abattoirs to take. 

Lean, low-value cows means farmers might run more animals than the veld can carry, leading to overgrazing. 

The community had been let down by the state in this regard. The local municipality doesn’t send its rubbish trucks this far out, though. Parents had few options for dealing with soiled nappies, other than to throw them in the veld and hope nature would take care of things. 

They’d also been let down by the country’s biggest retailers. Nappy producers and retailer chains only supply and stock disposables, made from indestructible, cheap plastic and moisture-absorbing gel. Even if parents wanted to buy washable options, there weren’t any to be found, anywhere. 

So residents took matters into their own hands. The solution: washable “smart” nappies made by a small enterprise in Durban, which sells online. The savings is a no-brainer, according to feedback from parents: instead of spending about R15,000 over the course of their baby’s nappy-wearing years, they could save the equivalent value of three cows. 

If these families can do it – whose income is a pittance, who have barely any political clout and are far off the economic grid – the rest of society can too. 

Here’s what the leading organisations who are working in the plastics pollution arena have to say about tackling the foul issue of soiled but indestructible plastic nappies across the continent.   

Nappies for Africa: what will work, what won’t, and the red herrings 

Washable cloth nappies – the quickest fix 

The “smart” nappy solution being tried out by the Matatiele community, as told here, uses a tailored cloth nappy with a grid of press studs that fits as the baby grows from newborn to toilet-trained. It has a washable, waterproof insert and a fully compostable liner that catches the solids and can be flushed down a loo or thrown into a pit latrine along with toilet paper. 

All the studies reviewed for this article suggest that this is the most feasible option for an African context. To make it happen there needs to be large-scale investment in small businesses that can make and distribute this low-tech solution. 

In the Matatiele case, the one-off cost of about R560 gets a pack of five cloth nappies. This is a huge savings, given that parents may spend as much each month, the equivalent of a child income grant, on disposables. 

Compostable nappies – a moonshot for most Africans 

If nappy makers were truly committed to solving the problem, they’d quickly switch their production lines to produce fully compostable nappies, and retailers would insist on only stocking these. The technology is there, but not widely available, even in the Global North. 

The product must be 100% compostable, though, and some manufacturers are still using plastic fasteners and liners which compromises the whole product, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a circular economy think-tank and charity.  

Compostable nappies can be treated the way “humanure” is made, at an industrial as well as a household scale. 

The contents of a dry toilet – sawdust, urine and solids – are put into a composting bin. Over months it must heat to between 55°C and 70°C to kill off pathogens. Just like normal kitchen food waste composting, it must be turned often. After about a year it should be safe, gardening-friendly compost. 

At the top of the value chain, adapting for compostables means that producers need to commit to changing their production lines, post haste. 

At the bottom end of the chain, waste management needs to be geared to cope with the volume of nappies that will enter the waste stream in high-density areas such as cities and towns. This needs industrial-scale systems of collection and compost processing. African cities are already buckling under waste management shortfalls, so they’re unlikely to be able to add this to their service delivery to-do list. 

Red herring 1 – recycling plastics-based nappies

Recycling nappies sounds great, but it doesn’t address the foundational problem driving the pollution: one cup of crude oil goes into every plastics-derived nappy. This buoys the fossil fuel industry at a time when it needs to be mothballed.  

Recycling can work in countries with the infrastructure to handle the sorting, collection and processing of the waste at scale. Developed world waste management contexts usually have this nailed, but Africa doesn’t.

Even though plastic nappy brands like Pampers, made by Procter & Gamble, and Huggies, from Kimberly-Clark, will fly the recycle banner for their sustainability spin, its reported effectiveness should be taken with a pinch of evidence-based salt.  

Red herring 2 – the plastics eaters 

A plastic-devouring mushroom and styrofoam-eating mealworm might be just the breakthrough needed to clean up the plastic pollution that’s been building up in the environment since these cheap, lightweight and convenient materials began churning off production lines 70 years ago. 

Back in 1950, only two million tonnes of plastic were rolling off production lines. Today, output has grown to 450 million tonnes a year, according to Our World in Data figures. Most of that plastic is still with us. While some will have been destroyed through incineration, most of it is still somewhere out there in the world. Some of it is getting into our bodies now, too, as it breaks apart into smaller invisible particles – microplastics have been found in human breastmilk, placental tissue, testes and even now in our brains.

For fungus or insect tech fixes to catch up with the pollution backlog needs scaling at a pace that won’t meet the urgency of the situation. 

This approach will be a rinse-and-repeat from the carbon pollution arena: the hope that we can build industrial-scale air filters that can suck excess carbon pollution from the atmosphere and lock it away deep underground. It’s unproven, and it’s not scalable at the speed it’s needed. It’s also an excuse not to change the limitless-growth economic model that’s allowing the rich to get richer at the expense of the majority of the world’s population. 

Government: money talks, regulation must talk louder 

In 2011, the Lancet’s special report on obesity pointed out the blindingly obvious: that profit-taking corporations in the food and beverage sectors won’t change what they sell to the public, even though evidence shows how damaging their food-like and sugary products are to people’s health. The public health community called on governments for tight regulations in the interest of the common good.

The same applies to the plastics sector, and the nappy industry.

There are many carrot-and-stick monetary incentives that can help reshape the nappy industry: taxing high-polluting operations across the value chain, giving tax cuts to operations that reduce fossil fuel source materials and polluting products, and subsidies that boost greener alternatives. There’s no shortage of recommendations for how to do this. The “polluter pays” principle – what economists call the “extended producer responsibility” approach – is a global best practice for making polluting industries accountable for the physical and financial fallout of their products. 

Cautionary tales from the sugar tax and plastic bag levy cases in South Africa: if the industry lobbies hard enough, they’ll bully the government into watered-down taxes. The industry argument in both these cases was that a high tax would result in job losses and costs to the economy. This argument doesn’t account for the existing economic losses caused by the pollution from these sectors, borne by the state and individuals, while industry continues to profit. 

Corporations: where South African suppliers and retailers can make the biggest change  

If washable cloth nappies are the fastest, easiest and most viable way to turn off the pollution at source, how does South Africa do this at scale, and quickly?

Retailers can take some of that enormous profits they’ve made from consume-and-discard nappies, a model that keeps customers returning for more, and invest it in supporting small start-up businesses to bulk-produce washable nappies. Then, make the supply chain accessible to them. Prioritise shelf space for these small operators, rather than favouring the big players who have enjoyed priority access for pollution nappy products for decades. 

Supporting this model will mean lower turnover for retailers, but more cash in the pockets of the most vulnerable.  

Individuals: be the change 

“What can I do?”

That’s probably the question asked most often by people wanting to contribute somehow to solving the problems bedevilling society. 

How can a single person act effectively when the system is so powerful, and when it’s controlled by those wanting to maintain the status quo? 

Historian and all-round genius Yuval Noah Harari has a simple answer: join a movement, or start a movement. 

Few have the skill, time or resources to start a movement. But those with the means can join one, without even leaving the comfort of their armchair activism. Someone can support the organisations that are already doing the environmental and social justice work. These organisations have the momentum, networks, skills and theories of change in place. They’re already doing the work on behalf of the rest of society. 

People who have spare cash, time or useful skills can help keep them afloat with money or volunteering their time and skills. 

Now, as never before, is the time for a can-do attitude. There is no other option. 

“What can I do to change the system?” asked eight billion people.DM

This story is from Story Ark – tales from southern Africa’s climate tipping points, a multiyear mobile journalism project that’s investigating how the climate crisis is unfolding on our doorstep, in our lifetime. It is a collaboration with the Stellenbosch University School for Climate Studies and the Henry Nxumalo Foundation which supports investigative journalism. 

It is also part of the Covering Climate Now 89 Percent Project, a yearlong global media collaboration aimed at highlighting the fact that the vast majority of people in the world care about climate change and want their governments to do something about it.