Читать книгу Hatches, Matches and Despatches - Jenny Paschall - Страница 14

IN the UK, 2,191,781 pounds of paper are used in non-recyclable disposable nappies every year. 48,835,616 disposable nappies are thrown away.

JAPANESE mothers change their babies’ nappies an average of fourteen times a day – twice as much as European and American mothers.

SAINSBURY’S once promised a year’s supply of free nappies for pregnant mums whose waters break in one of their stores.

SOME professions pose problems that we lesser mortals thankfully never have to worry about. Take, for instance, nappy manufacturers. How do they test their products? It seems that babies can be unreliable when it comes to delivering waste on time, so scientists at the Kimberley Clark Corporation have come up with synthetic faeces. Apparently testers, reluctant to use the real thing, had tried mashed potatoes, peanut butter, and even tinned pumpkin pie mix – but none of them was chemically accurate enough.

Delighted testers can now use a compound which comes in a dry mix to which water is added for the desired consistency. It can be any colour, but they usually use brown. At the request of the testers, it is odourless. For anyone interested in the recipe, the US patent number is 5,356,626.

A MERICAN parents can make potty training fun by purchasing an audio book entitled ‘I’m on the Potty’. Set to familiar nursery rhyme tunes, they can sing along with ‘Diapers Falling on the Ground’ (Instead of ‘London Bridge is Falling Down’), and ‘I’m on the Potty’. Presumably, ‘Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head’ is not included, although we thought we might suggest ‘Spending Pennies From Heaven’ for the next edition.