SuperBottoms: The Sustainable Diaper Design
With 25 lakh families using up to five diapers every day for at least three years, the number of disposable diapers finding their way into landfills adds up to roughly 11,25,0000000. A team of mothers concerned about the waste generated by this every year led to the conceptualisation of SuperBottoms, a sustainable diaper for babies that can be reused.
Pallavi Utagi spends most of her time thinking about the product, its design and its use alongside the environmental benefits of her product. Founding the startup in 2016, SuperBottoms now has a network of 77,000 mothers sharing their concerns regarding disposing of waste and making affordable and environmentally conscious decisions while balancing the everyday responsibilities of motherhood.
In Utagi's address at the Future of Design Summit & Awards 2023, the CEO spoke about the eco-anxiety faced. “Diapers sit for 500 years in a landfill. Poop inside diapers is never disposed of, which seeps into the ground and is a huge groundwater contamination problem as well,” she states. Utagi adds that telling new parents to not use disposable diapers is not a realistic option as they will choose “convenience over sustainability”.
SuperBottoms is designed to combine “the convenience of disposable but is sustainable”.
The strength of the brand lies in its network, keeping an ongoing feedback loop and an eye on innovation by making the customer a part of the team.
Today, SuperBottoms ships out around 3000-4000 diapers a day. The diaper is designed to have a waterproof shell and a pad inside that can absorb for hours and keeps the baby's skin dry. The size can be adjusted as the baby grows. Utagi is in the process of filing a patent for the design.
On her journey to find suitable alternatives to disposable diapers for children, Utagi estimates that they have now prevented six to seven crore diapers from being added to the growing waste in landfills.
