Tops Salisbury at Salisbury District Hospital is one of several Tops Day Nurseries across the South of England to support an effort led by the Minister for Nature, Rebecca Pow MP, to ban traditional baby wipes in favour of environmentally friendly alternatives.

According to a study performed by Water UK in 2017, baby wipes accounted for more than 75% of identifiable material causing sewer blockages in the UK. Traditional baby wipes are non-flushable as they contain single-use plastic.

Emily Rowe, deputy manager at Tops Salisbury, explained what it has been like to help with the effort and outlined the process the nursery uses to produce its own, more sustainable wipes. The wipe-making process is also incorporated as a fun activity for the children which teaches them the importance of sustainability.

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Emily said: “It’s been a really lovely change to sort of help the environment. All the staff really enjoy making the wipes and we get the children involved making them as well, so they understand why we’re making our own wipes and how important it is to look after our environment.

“We use kitchen roll, aloe vera and witch hazel with some warm water, and then we just mix it all together and we pour it over the kitchen roll, and that’s how we make our own wipes.”

Salisbury Journal: The materials Tops Salisbury uses to make its own eco-friendly baby wipes.The materials Tops Salisbury uses to make its own eco-friendly baby wipes. (Image: Hayley Randall)

Although they are not flushable, the self-made wipes are more biodegradable because kitchen roll does not contain single-use plastic.

Tops Day Nurseries founder and chair Cheryl Hadland said: “Our whole ethos at Tops is to be sustainable and we are always looking for ways to improve our practice in an environmentally friendly way.

“After introducing the glitter ban in 2017, stopping all one-use plastics that we could, throughout our nurseries, becoming the first chain of day nurseries to achieve B Corp Accreditation in the UK and receiving a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Sustainable Development, we are thrilled to see the government taking more action towards saving our planet by introducing a new world-leading legislation to ban wet wipes containing plastic.”