Knowing that they are biodegradable, many people want to compost their used ECO nappies at home – yay!

Cold home compost systems aren’t suitable for composting used nappies quickly, but it can be done quite easily under hot compost conditions.

If you do choose to compost nappies yourself, please keep in mind that you should only home-compost wet nappies, and not nappies that contain solid waste (poos). This is because, unlike commercial composters, even hot home composters don’t get hot enough to kill the pathogens that may be found in solid waste. We recommend that you dispose of nappies containing solid waste with the rest of your general household rubbish (remembering that they will still biodegrade centuries faster than other disposable nappies in landfill) and only compost urine-filled nappies at home. This will safely allow the resulting compost to be used on your garden.

If you’ve never heard of hot composting, this is one of the simplest guides we’ve found to creating a hot compost system at home: https://www.growveg.com.au/guides/hot-composting-made-simple/

To efficiently compost biodegradable nappies and pants at home:

  1. Remove the waistband and tabs (this is the <15% of the nappy that isn’t biodegradable – yet), and dispose of these in your general waste.
  2. Cut the nappy in half down the middle to expose the inner core.
  3. Be sure to add a good mix with the nappy into your composter to aid in biodegradation, eg brown dried leaves, fresh cut grass and fruit & vegetable kitchen waste.
  4. Turn the compost every 2-3 weeks to oxygenate the pile.
  5. Use the finished compost for grass, shrubs, flowers and other non-edible plants. We do not recommend using compost made with home-composted nappies on food gardens.

Buy your biodegradable nappies here