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Eco and Green Diapers – Greening Your Baby

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As I walked by a dirty diaper in the street the other day- (Yuck!) I got to wondering about diapers and the effect on the environment. Apparently there is a huge controversy on Cloth Diapers v.s. Disposables. Proctor and Gamble commissioned a study.” The study asserted that disposable diapers are actually less resource-intensive than cloth diapers, due to the water, energy and detergent required to launder them. Disposables also require water in their manufacture, but in another analysis it was shown that cumulative water use was greater for both commercial diaper services and home-laundered cloth diapers (home-laundering used slightly less water) [LeVan 1995].”  Studies by Environmentalists and cloth diaper manufacturer’s showed the opposite: cloth diapers used less resources overall. There was also conflict about claims from the disposable diaper industry that their products were compostable. Environmentalists and the cloth diaper industry countered that, while such claims might be true of a diaper left out in an open field where sunlight and rain could reach it, diapers in landfills (where almost all disposables end up) aren’t exposed to the elements, and therefore don’t turn into soil; most areas do not have facilities for composting diapers

So it seems- it’s a wash- on the environmental impact. As a parent you might consider a few other options such as the use of Dioxin (organic pollutant) amount of trees used, potential for groundwater contamination, and other materials used to make diapers. For more information go to  The Green Guide  to help make those decisions. It appears by all the resources I have read that Cloth Diapers are the cheapest way to go.

No matter what you decide to do- do it ecologically. If cloth- use organic diapers, use less energy in washing, and if using disposables- think greener options such as gdiapers 

I Just Gotta Tell Ya 

  • 3.2 Billion Dollar Disposable Diaper Market
  • 80% of the Market are disposables
  • 18 billion diapers add up to 82,000 tons of plastic a year and 1.3 million tons of wood pulp = 250,000 trees.
  • It is illegal in most states to dump human waste in landfills. About 5 million tons of untreated body excrement, which may carry over 100 intestinal viruses, is brought to landfills via disposables

Where to Buy?

Resources

Eco Childs Play 

Sustainability Institute 

Libraware


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