STOCKHOLM, Sweden — It wasn't money, ambition or even boredom that led Marlene Sandberg to quit her job as a corporate lawyer and become a diaper entrepreneur. It was the notion of Himalayan heaps of dirty nappies, each defying nature and refusing to decompose.

        The younger of her two sons was still in diapers when Ms. Sandberg read in a newspaper about the challenge Sweden faced in getting rid of all its used disposables.

        Concerned that her own family was contributing to the problem, she phoned around looking for companies that made biodegradable diapers. There weren't any, so she decided to try doing it herself.

        Nine years later, her Nature Boy & Girl brand of diapers sells in some of Britain's biggest supermarkets, sharing shelf space with products from consumer goods giants Procter & Gamble Co. and Kimberly-Clark Corp.

        Her company, Naty AB, hopes to expand soon into France, followed by Belgium, Finland and, eventually, the United States.

        Yet Ms. Sandberg, 42, insists that she's no eco-militant defending nature at the cost of customer convenience.

        “I'm not like the freaks, the "Greens,' who are willing to sacrifice a higher performance in a product,” she said in a recent interview. “I only want the best for my children.”

        Most disposable diapers are no more than 40 percent biodegradable. Sandberg has boosted her brand's biodegradable content to 70 percent, partly by using corn starch instead of plastic to make the outer layer of her diapers.

        She also has reduced the need for super-absorbent chemicals by designing “channels” in the nappy that disperse the baby's urine so that it doesn't pool in just one place.

        Her goal is to develop a diaper that's 100 percent biodegradable.

        “I want to wake up in the night and be proud of the diaper. I want to be at the forefront of the development,” she said.

        For now, the plastic tapes that hold the diaper together and the inner liner that touches the baby's skin are the parts that don't readily decompose.

        Naty, with its staff of five, has tapped into a segment of the diaper market that shows potential for rapid growth. Waitrose Ltd., an upscale British grocery chain, began stocking Nature Boy & Girl on a limited basis a year ago. Sales have been brisk, and the chain, noting an increase in consumer awareness of environmental issues, has started distributing them to more of its stores.

        Sandberg recalled her surprise a decade ago that not even in Sweden, renowned for its green sensibilities, could she find a nature-friendly disposable.

        Spotting an opportunity, she abandoned her legal career and started her nappy business in 1993. Backed by her husband, an insurance executive, and financed by a clutch of wealthy investors, she bought a small factory and experimented with her own designs.

        Sweden proved a tough market to crack because just a few manufacturers and retailers dominate the diaper trade. So Sandberg looked to Britain, where she found supermarkets more receptive to new brands and ideas.

        Naty began selling there in 2000 and recently contracted with a local firm to produce diapers for the British market. Sandberg's firm has a 1 percent slice of the market, and it's aiming to triple that share — without advertising.

        Based in a cluttered office suite in suburban Stockholm, Naty is exploiting a niche between conventional disposables and traditional cloth diapers. It has drawn criticism from both camps.

        In Britain, Naty's biggest market, most disposable diapers end up in landfills, where they are entombed in dirt and shielded from the sunlight, air and moisture needed to decompose. For this reason, Joanne Bird, a spokeswoman in Europe for Kimberly-Clark — maker of the popular Huggies brand of disposables — argues that Naty's claim of 70 percent biodegradability is almost meaningless.

        “You have to look at the complete life cycle. If you put a biodegradable nappy in a landfill, it won't biodegrade,” she said.

        Others, like Peter Stephenson, head of a British trade group called the Absorbent Hygiene Products Manufacturers Association, suggest Naty's claim to making a greener diaper is little more than clever marketing.

        Sandberg agrees that decomposition is difficult at some landfills, but she noted that Naty has no control over how different countries dispose of their waste. Sweden, for example, incinerates about half of its garbage.

        However, the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation has approved of Naty's diapers as a “Good Green Choice” for consumers — an imprimatur the society has withheld from Pampers and Huggies.

        Partisans of cotton diapers say Naty's product is an improvement on plastic disposables.

        “But — and it's a big 'but' — it's still a single-use disposable item ... It's still adding to the waste problem that we have in this country.” said Liz Sutton of the Women's Environmental Network, an educational charity in Britain.

        Sandberg maintains disposables are more practical, especially for working mothers who don't have time to wash and dry cotton nappies.

        Creativity born of years spent changing her own sons' diapers gives her an edge, she believes, in her underdog “guerrilla” campaign against the U.S. multinationals. Sandberg said her larger competitors view diapers merely as a commodity to be produced on a massive scale and as cheaply as possible.

        “We want to be a brand with more personality,” she said.

        Nature Boy & Girl packages stand out for their spontaneous photos of smiling, ungroomed babies. Each package has a unique lumpiness and a wrapping of biodegradable corn starch. Crucially, they cost no more than their main competition.

        Naty has posted a steady rise in sales since 1999, generating $3.9 million in revenues last year. The firm has broken even and expects net income of $300,000 this year on estimated sales of $6.2 million.

        The company is designing other products, including biodegradable baby bibs and breast pads for nursing mothers.

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