Revisiting cloth diaper issue?

Question

Why do so many people think that disposable diapers are more environmental friendly than cloth? They are ruining our landfills. They take years to break down. Also, human waste should not be in a land fill. Will evidentually contaminate ground water.

Answer 1

I'm torn on the issue. Disposable are more convenient and more energy efficient (think water consumption from your washing machine to wash the cloth and the electricity or gas to run the machine). They don't contaminate a landfill anymore than feces from any other animal would, so that's a dead argument. Feces are a natural part of the environment and is a great fertilizer. However, the cloth diapers you can use over and over again without having to get new ones, which is a nice feature, too. However, it seems less sanitary to me, so I'll probably stick with disposables. They do make organic disposables that are fine for the environment, btw. You can get them at Trader Joe's or Whole Foods.

Answer 2

I cannot for the life of me figure some people out. They keep talking about disposables and how they don't hurt the environment and all and that cloth diapers aren't any better than the disposables when it comes to conservation. They also talk about how convenient that the disposables are.

Has everyone forgotten about the most important thing when it comes to any type of diaper? WHAT ABOUT THE BABY??

You know, it seems to me that the most important thing about diapers is the person wearing them. Disposables are the most uncomfortable diaper ever made in the world. With disposables the instance of diaper rash is so much higher than with cloth. I'm not just saying this, it's a documented fact as well as I have raised three kids through diapers and have used both cloth and disposable and ultimately went back to cloth half way through the second and the whole time with the last one.

Cloth diapers are softer and so much more comfortable than disposables. Disposable wick the moisture away from the body so we have the tendancy not to change the diapers as often which is bad because even though the urine isn't against the baby's body the moisture level is higher inside te diaper causing diaper rashes. With cloth we change diapers as soon as they get wet so because of that, diaper rashes are almost non-existent.

Now to add a more personal touch to this. I am incontinent and have to wear diapers 24 / 7 due to a medical condition. I have worn both disposable and cloth diapers and believe me, everything I've said is true. I can tell you from personal experience. I think all prospective parents should be made to wear both disposable and cloth diapers for about 3 months each all day and night, just like a baby would. Then let them decide which is more comfortable for the baby.

Remember, THE BABY SHOULD COME FIRST, not your convenience. What is comfortable for the baby and healthiest for the baby is what should count, no matter how inconvenient it is for you. Isn't that what loving your child is all about? Doing the best for the child?

Good luck.

Answer 3

The people who use disposable diapers are not thinking they are environmentally friendly by any means. However, when you are a sleep deprived mother, the idea of a disposable diaper is very tempting. I'm a working mother and my daughter is 7 months old, and I end up doing 1-2 loads of laundry a day. Adding diapers to this would just send me over the edge. I already feel like my house is a disaster, I don't get anything done, I'm barely getting in any planning time at work (I'm a teacher and I pump at every break.)
The thing is, the idea of cloth diapers was wonderful before I became a mom. I compost, I recycle like crazy, I teach my students to recycle everything. I'd like to use cloth diapers, and I wish there was a diaper service in my area because that would probably help me to be more environmentally friendly, but as it is, for me to keep my sanity, disposable diapers are the way I need to go. Plus my daycare service doesn't do cloth diapers.

Answer 4

Nobody has mentioned diaper services! I have been using a cloth diaper service for my 4 month old since she was born, and I absolutley love it! They come once a week, pick up the dirty ones, and bring me a whole week supply of clean diapers. The only thing I have to wash is the waterproof diaper cover, and that is really no big deal, I just rinse them out when they get dirty, and then throw them in when I wash my other things, nothing more!

It is also more cost effective, in my area, than disposables. We pat $76 a month for our diaper service, and we figured the cost of Pampers Swaddlers would be about $85 a month. Not much of a difference, but enough to make it worth it!

My daughter has never had a diaper rash or problems with her skin, and it has been just as easy as disposables. I think that aside from the enviromental benefits, not putting the chemicals of disposables on my baby's skin is a blessing!

Thats just my opinion!

Answer 5

A) - It's actually ILLEGAL to dump human fecal matter in a landfill. Like it or not, agree or not, it's still illegal. I've been told it even says on the side of disposable diaper packs to dump solid waste in the toilet first.

B) - Disposable diapers use more water and resources being made than cloth diapers use being washed (over the life of the diaper, not just one wash).

C) - No one really knows how long disposable diapers take to break down. Most experts estimate 250-500 years. That means that EVERY SINGLE disposable diaper ever made is still in a landfill somewhere.

D) - Disposable diapers contain potentially toxic chemicals (dioxin and sodium polyacrylate). They are dangerous for the factory workers manufacturing them, they are bad for the environment, and they are bad for your baby's skin.

E) - Cloth diapers and wipes are CHEAPER in the long run. I spent less than $300 on my daughter's cloth diaper stash. I bought one size diapers that will grow with her, so I won't have to buy many more between now and potty training. It's even cheaper if you buy all pre-folds. Before we switched, I was spending $75-100 a month on disposables. If you can't afford the initial investment, you can find patterns online to make your own diapers and covers or go to www.miraclediapers.org. Or you can buy them used and new off diaperswappers.com or ebay.

F) - With all the new diapering systems available, it is really not that much more effort than disposable diapers. Many of my daughter's dipes are all in one styles - they velcro on just like a disposable, but they go in the wash, not the trash. No more time, just a couple extra loads of laundry each week.

Personally, I couldn't find any reason to justify NOT cloth diapering my daughter.

Answer 6

Wetsaway and Avery's mommy covered what I wanted to say. I can't believe how many people believe that cloth is just as bad for the environment as disposables. They believe that because of advertising and misleading research. The most commonly cited study is the OSU study, which determined that there's no significant difference in the environmental impact of cloth vs disposables. However, OSU based their research on outdated washing methods. No one washes with bleach anymore! There was another study funded by Proctor and Gamble. That's right, of Pampers and Luvs fame. Guess what they came up with? What a joke.

Animals spread their feces around in such a way that the feces are usable as fertilizer. People put all of their feces in one place. When that's concentrated in one place, such as a landfill, we have a potential issue, but who could compare that to animals pooping in the forest?

Yes, in some parts of the world, water is so scarce that disposables are an unfortunate necessity. Poor babies. My husband spent a year in Iraq, using paper plates and plastic silverware because there was no water for washing. Of course, the Army can just bury all of that trash in the desert and forget about it . . .

Disposables use water in their manufacture--lots of it! They also use lots and lots of petroleum, chlorine and wood pulp. We can all help reduce this country's dependence on foreign oil by using reusable diapers rather than wasting oil on diapers, packaging and transportation to the landfill. Cloth diapered babies use as much water as a toilet trained person and only a tiny amount of detergent (1\4 cup per load or less), baking soda and vinegar. No more.

Yes, cloth is expensive up front, and until you learn what you're doing, you may have leaks, but that changes fast. The initial cost is high, but then you're done buying! You learn how to put the diapers on and how often to change them and the leaks are gone. Really. Cloth is less absorbent, but the elastic is higher quality than on single use diapers, so BMs do not leak! That means that newborns require fewer changes of clothing, which offsets the extra laundry a little.

Answer 7

Are you using Y!A as a forum, or asking a legitimate question?

I'll give you an answer just in case you're serious, but I'm going to hold forth a bit just like you are, I hope you don't mind.

Why do so many self-righteous SUV-driving yuppies think everyone can afford cloth diapering? What garbage doesn't take years to break down? Why don't cloth diaper advocates think that the energy and water use involved in laundering all those cloth diapers has any environmental effects?

We tried cloth for a few months and not only did it cost a small fortune, but the damn things leaked everywhere. I might try again when I'm ready to potty train, but I'm not going to pretend I'm doing something more environmentally responsible. Living on this earth uses resources; you just gotta pick which ones you're going to use sometimes.

Answer 8

I am surprised that no one has mentioned disposable diaper recycling!
I run a small research group that is completely non-partisan and privately funded by a group of parents from all walks of life who have simply had enough of all this brainwashing madness about cloth vs. disposable diapers. Our website is currently under construction but can be found at www.disposalalternatives.com and will soon list more of our findings.
Cloth diapers are simply a thing of the past in todays lifstyle and the giant diaper companies know this well. As with many retro-fads there is a small group of parents and companies who continue to argue that they are more environmentally friendly. Maybe we can all send our dirty cloth diapers to them and after they wash them for a few years they might reconsider this. Convenience is a major factor and this factor does affect the environment yet this never comes out in the cloth diaper debates. Parents staying home and washing diapers creates many taxing issues besides the impact of the washing itself. First, we have found that 87% of the parents who do use cloth and wash them at home still use bleach. We have also found that most of these parents become so busy trying to do things like cloth diapering and other green tasks that they often do not have the time to follow through with other things like cooking from scratch, composting and so on. This leads to more fast food and thus more waste in the landfills than they diverted by switching to cloth in the first place. Though we did find that the current reports claiming only 2% of landfill waste is diapers is way off, unclean paper still accounts for more than 50% of waste being hauled to our landfills. Most recycling programs only accept clean paper so here is a major issue NOT being adequately addressed. *Remeber that when looking at these numbers be sure they are calculated AFTER the recyclables have been removed.*
It is true that federal law prohibits the disposal of human feces in our landfills yet we have also found that many municipalities continue to accept unmonitored sewer sludge, some of what we have found extremely high bacteria counts in as well as animal waste including dead animals that have died from dieses and these in much higher quantities than diaperwaste could ever compare to. One slaughterhouse is known to send tons of mutilated beef cattle to a local landfill weekly!
Though I know I have jumped around here and I do not have the time to get into further detail here, I can tell you all that the best method of diapering (when I say best I mean considering the whole picture, environment, convenience, accessibility and implementation) is to use disposables and have them recycled. We are currently running a small pilot program and have found many levels at which they can be recycled. If you want to talk about misinformation campaigns, nothing is attacked more ferociously than disposable diaper recycling because it impacts the pocketbooks of both the disposable diaper manufacturers (as they have been asked to pick up some of the cost at getting the program started) as well as the cloth diaper services who would lose their main sell point, the guilt that some people bear as they throw away all those diapers.
Contact us for more information on how you can get involved in implementing a diaper recycling program near you…

Answer 9

We use cloth wipes, and just that means a LOT of laundry. Why do you think it's such a black-and-white issue?

Also, I'm sure there's something I'm missing with this one (and would welcome an explanation), but how is human waste any different from all the other awful stuff that goes into a landfill?

Speaking as somebody on a well and septic system, I'm just not getting the 'poop in ground = contamination' issue.


edit: re. "Why do so many self-righteous SUV-driving yuppies think everyone can afford cloth diapering?" Huh? We spend $20 a pack on our overpriced, unbleached, soft, advertising-free (sorry, licensed character-free) 'Seventh Generation' disposable dipes. How on earth are cloth diapers more expensive?

Answer 10

There are big companies, mills, and other organizations dumping a lot more potent chemicals into our water than baby poop; let's clean them up first, then we can worry about baby diapers. Also let's tell all the animals in forest to carry a disposable toilet with them so they don't contaminate the ground water with their feces. while I agree that disposable diapers are not as environmentally friendly as using cloth diapers, we need to look for other ways to solve the problem.