The centre ethos at Little Moas ECL is around sustainability, eco friendly practices and supporting children’s holistic development through strong relationships and a play based curriculum. With 42 kids going through roughly 120 nappies each day, the choice to use Reusable Nappies was a no-brainer for Little Moas.
Reusable Nappies, contributes to a sustainable future which is something the team at Little Moas love, as well as providing a service enabling families to learn about sustainable practices such as these. By providing reusable nappies at their centre, they are not placing harmful waste such as disposable nappies and wet wipes into landfill.
Most staff members are enthusiastic about contributing to a sustainable future by learning about reusable nappies and encouraging families to use these. The team quickly adapted to the use of reusable nappies and did not find them unmanageable or particularly different to changing children with disposable nappies.
In one of our previous features, we got to know Solange from ENS – Eco Nappy Services. She helps Little Moas by providing freshly laundered reusable nappies 3 times a week and taking the dirty ones away on these visits. She is a lovely, friendly and helpful lady who is passionate about her products and services and has been able to provide the team with lots of information and guidance around the nappies when needed.
Saving money is great bonus when using reusables and this is at the core for Little Moas. They are able to cut down on costs of wet wipes for cleaning the children after their nappy change, paper towels for wiping down the changing surface and helping families save money. This is because they so cleverly provide reusable nappies so families don’t have to buy and bring in their own disposables nappies and wet wipes.
Most families are excited to be tying out reusable nappies and contributing to eco friendly practices. A lot of families who start at Little Moas have chosen them especially because of their sustainability ethos and are already using reusable nappies at home.
As a policy/guideline a lot of ECEs have a 2-3 hour limit for how long they can have a nappy on, soiled or not, it goes in the bin. This is a wasteful practice if a child’s disposable nappy is dry or only a little damp. The advantage of reusable nappies is that while it is changed every 2 hours, they are always going into the wash, not into landfill.
Making the switch to reusable nappies at an ECL is somehing Little Moas highly would advise on and recommend doing. Do your research first and ensure to consult teachers and families. It is important that everyone is consulted on the change and that good evidence is provided to rationalise the change e.g. information and readings around hygiene of reusable nappies, cost to families and contributing to sustainable practices.
Starting small and slowly replacing single use products is a great way to implement fully in your daily routines. Little Moas use a lot of natural objects, resources and toys in their centre such as wood, pine cones, shells, and any treasures found in nature. Plastic is very limited and most resources are made from natural or plant based fibres. They reuse paper and brown paper bags for art work and crafts. Crayons and coloured pencils as opposed to plastic felt pens and make their own eco friendly glitter our of dried flowers, leaves, crayon and pencil gratings, coloured paper confetti from hole punching. All of their cleaning and care products such as handwash, dishwashing liquid, cleaning sprays etc are from the eco store brand. They also source some toys and resources from op shops, which contributes to the reuse/recycle practices of sustainability.
We are so pleased that Little Moas decided to use Little Genies Pocket Nappies at their centre.
"Because they are a great product and we like supporting a New Zealand business! Little genie nappies are affordable, durable, great quality, came in a two different styles for nappies and pullups and accessible for all. It has been a great experience for us in which we feel good about the choices we are making by using and providing reusable nappies. It feels good to be contributing to a sustainable Aotearoa and to be supporting families to come on this journey with us as they discover and learn about reusable nappies for themselves and limit waste going into landfill."
Have a look at Little Moas and check in on their social to follow their sustainable and eco friendly practices.