Diary date: 11th-18th March 2007

Daily fashion shows at the ExCel Baby Show, London on the 9th, 10th and 11th March will kick start a range of nationwide events planned for Real Nappy Week.

Babies and toddlers strutting the latest chic and trendy designs in real nappies are sure to wow the audience and will showcase the best that real nappies have to offer. More info from www.thebabyshow.co.uk

The 11th Real Nappy Week - which runs from 11th -18th March 2007 - will highlight how cloth nappies are increasingly moving from being a niche to a mainstream choice. Many high street stores and an ever-growing number of local and online suppliers now offer a wide variety of stylish and easy to use real nappies.

During Real Nappy Week parents and carers will have numerous opportunities find out what cloth nappies are really like in events across the UK. With nappuccinos from Dorset and the Isle of Anglesey to Bedfordshire and Perth and Kinross, parents can enjoy a coffee while finding out about real nappies in a relaxed environment. Roadshows in Devon, Hampshire and Argyll and Bute will take the 'real nappy' message to the streets. Real nappy fashion shows in Buckinghamshire, Newcastle and Camden, London will also demonstrate how real nappies have become a fashionable lifestyle choice. Other events include a teddy bear's picnic in Cambridgeshire, a baby show in Wiltshire where people can take part in the Design a Wiltshire Nappy competition, and a mountain of nappy waste in London.
Details of all activities are posted on Women's Environmental Network's website, www.wen.org.uk.The list is updated regularly as new events are confirmed.

Last year, Real Nappy Week attracted record support with the backing of over 90% of UK local authorities, and almost 600 worldwide events in the UK, Australia, China, Ireland, Mexico and New Zealand. Eight million disposable nappies are thrown away every day in the UK, mostly ending up in landfill sites. Real Nappy Week shows parents how they can save money, save waste and benefit the environment all at the same time.

Real Nappy Week is co-ordinated by Women's Environmental Network, supported by WRAP (the Waste & Resources Action Programme) through its Real Nappy Campaign. To find out how you can celebrate Real Nappy Week's 11th anniversary or post details of activities log on to www.wen.org.uk/rnw

ENDS
Media contacts: Liz Sutton or Suzanne Simmons Lewis on 020 7481 9004.

Notes to Editors
1. Government funding for real nappy promotion via WRAP, ends on 31 March 2007. The number of events for Real Nappy Week is significantly smaller this year, because overall funding for the Week is a tenth of what it was last
year. Alternative funding to run Real Nappy Week 2008 and provide information to parents throughout the year has not currently been identified, but WEN hopes that new funding will be found, as work needs to continue to promote real nappies nationally and locally.

2. The Nappy Finder service - www.realnappycampaign.com/nappyfinder allows parents to find all their local services including Local Authority incentive schemes simply by entering their postcode. It lists 1,100 different services across the country, including retailers, nappy agents (who demonstrate different types of nappy and answer parents' questions), laundries and incentive schemes. These include 144 online services.

3. Research by GfK NOP for Real Nappies for London, a joint project between WEN and several London boroughs, between June 2005 and July 2006, showed that while parents were concerned about environmental impacts of nappies and the cost of disposables, convenience drove their behaviour. Parents who hadn't tried cloth nappies held an outdated image of them, believing them to be time consuming and difficult, but 69% of those who had participated in pilot schemes trying modern real nappies found them easier than they had thought and 83% said they would continue to use them after the pilot period.

4. The Real Nappy Helpline - 0845 850 0606 - gives callers details of their local cloth nappy contacts whether they want to buy them to wash at home or use a laundry service.

5. Women's Environmental Network (WEN) is a registered charity that campaigns on issues which link women, health and the environment. WEN has been involved in Real Nappy Week since its inception and has coordinated the week in its current form since 2000. Support for the Week has grown year on year: from 116 organisations in 2000, to more than 850 supporters in 2006 - over 90% of all UK local authorities - and hundreds of other organisations, companies and political representatives. Other current WEN issues include food, toxic chemicals and climate change.

6. Nappy facts
a. Cost Home laundered nappies could save parents around £500 on the cost of keeping a baby in nappies.
b. Health Disposable nappies are made of superabsorbent chemicals, paper pulp and plastics, while real nappies are mostly made of natural fabrics. Organic cotton and hemp nappies and organic wool waterproof covers are available at a reasonable cost.
c. Waste Nearly three billion nappies are thrown away in the UK every year. Most (90%) end up in landfill; that's nearly eight million nappies a day. We do not know how long it takes for the plastics in disposable nappies to decompose but it could take hundreds of years.

7. WRAP works in partnership to encourage and enable businesses and consumers to be more efficient in their use of materials and recycle more things more often. This helps to minimise landfill, reduce carbon emissions and improve our environment.

8. Established as a not-for-profit company in 2000, WRAP is backed by Government funding from Defra and the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

9. Working in seven key areas (construction, retail, manufacturing, organics, business growth, behavioural change, and local authority support), WRAP's work focuses on market development and support to drive forward recycling and materials resource efficiency within these sectors, as well as wider communications and awareness activities including the multi-media national Recycle Now campaign for England.

10. More information on all of WRAP's programmes can be found at
www.wrap.org.uk