You can wipe those smug smiles off your faces: according to a four-year study commissioned by the Environment Agency, disposable nappies are just as eco-friendly.

Or unfriendly. The agency checked the environmental impacts of disposable nappies and compared them with real nappies washed at home and real nappies collected and delivered by a professional laundry. All three involved destruction of raw materials such as trees and plants, leading to a depletion of resources.

All three contributed to global warming, from the air miles involved in flying in cotton to Britain from China, Pakistan and the United States, to the electricity used in washing and drying nappies at home; to the fuel used to collect and deliver clean nappies to a household; and to the methane produced from disposables that biodegrade in landfill sites.

The pollution watchdog’s verdict — that there is “little or nothing” to choose between real and disposable — is the first official blessing to young mothers who have felt guilty every time that they placed another bumper pack of Pampers into the shopping trolley.

The result is particularly amusing for the novelist Wendy Holden, whose latest bestseller is The Wives of Bath. The real versus throwaway nappy is one of the main contrasts between her protagonists, Alice Duffield, former media lawyer, and Amanda Hardwick, celebrity interviewer for a glamorous magazine. Alice, married to eco-warrior Jake, is limited to three real nappies a day for baby Rosa, while Amanda’s Theo is thoroughly Pampered.

Ms Holden, mother of Andrew, 2½, and Isabella, 1, said: “It’s a great relief to know that all that messing about with flushing linings away, endless fiddling with the temperatures of washing machines and so on doesn’t put anyone on the moral high ground — more probably back in the landfill site with everyone else.

The Environment Agency has, nevertheless, called for improvements in all nappy use and production. Tricia Henton, the director of environmental protection — a mother who used disposable and reusable — said: “Although there is no substantial difference between the environmental impacts, it does show where each system can be improved.”

She was concerned particularly about the 400,000 tonnes of disposables, some 2.5 billion nappies, that end up in landfill sites.

Real-nappy champions can continue to save the planet by changing their laundry routines. “Parents should consider if the nappies can be washed in a bigger load at a lower temperature,” Ms Henton said. She also advised parents to use low-temperature detergents, wash only in full loads and avoid pre-soaking and fabric softeners, which affect absorbency of nappies.

Not everyone was happy with the results of the research. The Women’s Environmental Network condemened it last night as “seriously flawed” and appealed to parents to stick with the reuseable variety. Yet manufacturers of disposables were cock-a-hoop. Tracey Stewart, director-general of the Absorbent Hygiene Products Manufacturers’ Association, said: “We are over the Moon. Parents can no longer be demonised for using disposables. No one any more can claim the moral high ground on nappies.”

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