Daycare centre bans disposable nappies in eco-friendly move

This Sunshine Coast day care centre is working toward a greener future by banning disposable nappies and introducing a long list of sustainable practices.

Charlie Turner, 3 of the Palmwoods Early Learning Centre. Photo: John McCutcheon / Sunshine Coast Daily

A NEWLY opened day care centre is working toward a greener future by banning disposable nappies and introducing a long list of sustainable practices.

Palmwoods Early Learning Centre, which opened on Monday, provides cotton cloth nappies with bamboo liners for youngsters, uses filtered rainwater - collected onsite - and uses solar-powered electricity to run the centre and its climate control systems.

Centre director Anita Corney said operating an eco-friendly business was important to her.

"Compared to most services, we are super sustainable," Ms Corney said.

"I have always felt very passionate about sustainability, so I feel responsible in my role, and in mine and my team's daily practices.

"Children are our future so that will be lifelong learning for them and hopefully they will share with others in their future."

Ms Corney, who has 30 years' experience in the industry, said she believed helping to reduce the huge number of disposable nappies used in the day care sector was a perfect place to start when working toward a more sustainable future.

"With policies and procedures in place … you are changing a nappy pretty much every two hours for every child, so in a centre this size you could have 30 children … and if you think about it that's a lot of nappies, that's a lot of landfill and they are not biodegradable," she said.

"We do it for anyone that would be using nappies throughout the day but it's not hard, we have a professional service that will collect and hygienically clean to hospital grade our individual service nappies on a daily basis."

Parent Rowena Wessling said the sustainable focus and natural environment at the centre was a huge selling point for her.

"The nappies, they are awesome," Ms Wessling said.

"My daughter is here four times a week, so I know we are not adding a huge pile to landfill.

"It's something that I wouldn't be able to do because I am a working mother, but because she is here that just makes it so much better.

"And the fact that there is real grass and the beautiful trees, it just feels natural and green, it's not sterile and concrete. I don't want my children growing up like that, I want them to grow up in a natural environment."

Ms Corney said the centre incorporated real grass and trees, which combined with wooden toys, aimed to reinforce the environmentally friendly focus.

"It's about going back and reducing the plastic and going back to natural resources and encouraging the children to take part in open-minded activities that can be used for various uses," she said.

"We have beautiful filtered shade from the trees in the morning and the building shades the play area in the afternoon.

"The grass is specially designed - it's forever green and it only grows to a certain length so you can use it as a resource and mow bike tracks into it or noughts and crosses.

"It's nice because synthetic grass can get hot and it limits the times that you can be in the playground and it can actually scrape off the children's skin."

Ms Corney said she hoped the centre would form a strong connection with the community, while introducing groundbreaking practices.

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