A government report that found old-fashioned reusable nappies damage the environment more than disposables has been hushed up because ministers are embarrassed by its findings.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has instructed civil servants not to publicise the conclusions of the £50,000 nappy research project and to adopt a “defensive” stance towards its conclusions.

The report found that using washable nappies, hailed by councils throughout Britain as a key way of saving the planet, have a higher carbon footprint than their disposable equivalents unless parents adopt an extreme approach to laundering them.

So, how could cloth diapers possibly have a larger carbon footprint? Because normal laundering procedures require so much energy that it’s better for the planet to just use disposables:

To reduce the impact of cloth nappies on climate change parents would have to hang wet nappies out to dry all year round, keep them for years for use on younger children, and make sure the water in their washing machines does not exceed 60C [140F].

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The report found that while disposable nappies used over 2½ years would have a global warming , impact of 550kg of CO2 reusable nappies produced 570kg of CO2 on average. But if parents used tumble dryers and washed the reusable nappies at 90C [194F], the impact could spiral to 993kg of CO2. A Defra spokesman said the government was shelving plans for future research on nappies.

They’re not going to touch this subject again because they’re afraid of what they’re going to find. Too funny! Even though Defra has been faced with new information that contradicts what they previously thought, they would rather continue to push British moms to use cloth diapers when they know full well that doing so hurts the environment far more more than telling them to switch back to disposables, something that would probably makes a lot of moms’ lives a bit easier.