A former assistant beauty editor of America Vogue, Marion ; Donovan came from a family of inventors. She began creating plastic coverings ; for the cloth nappies to stop the leakage using shower curtain material. In 1946 ; she patented "the boater" made from parachute cloth. It covered the ; cloth nappy. It was successfully marketed from 1049. Donovan also invested ; plastic snaps as an alternative to safety pins. ; She began using absorbent paper inside the boater instead of cloth but manufacturers ; were not interested in her idea, saying the product would be too expensive to ; make. So she set herself up in business and sold her invention a year later for ; 1 million dollars.

Procter and Gamble were the first company to make serious ; money out of the nappy with their own design that came later when they launched ; PAMPERS in the USA in 1961. It was immediately successful and they could not ; meet demand for years.

By 1971, US companies found that disposable nappies were the ; single largest source of waste problem on American Highways. The first PAMPER ; still lies in landfill with full biodegradability estimated at 150 years. The ; first disposable nappy was sold in Australia in 1965. Over 400 billion (an ; incomprehensible amount) of disposable nappies remain in landfills throughout ; the world.