Known as the Nappy Lady for her promotion of cloth nappies, Mrs Meads is on a nine-day, 23-stop tour of New Zealand, educating others about sustainable parenting.
When she decided to run the tour, she discovered the distance between Auckland and Invercargill was 2100km, the same distance covered by seven million disposable nappies laid end-to-end, the same number of nappies that ended up in New Zealand landfills each week.
"The whole thing is just about increasing awareness," she said.
Two events were held in Dunedin on Saturday, attended by about 150 people.
"It's funny how you can spend two hours talking about nappies," she said.
The events focused on educating parents about the many different styles and options available on the reusable nappy market, and ways they could live more sustainably without spending lots of money, or taking up lots of time.
"The education in the course is based on my experience. I was really bad, I was awful," she said.
When her son was born she and her husband used disposable nappies "because we had never been educated about it", until she was introduced to cloth nappies and found them to be a superior product.
Shortly after, they started recycling, created a worm farm, began composting and built a vege garden.
"It's been a seven year-long journey, but for me, it's been a growth thing and it has not cost us a lot of money. If you start with one thing, be it cloth nappies or recycling ...
that becomes easy, it's part of your lifestyle, then you introduce something else. I'm hoping, by introducing you to cloth nappies, you will start your own journey to becoming more sustainable at home."
