If you read the Honolulu Advertiser, you may have spotted a familiar face in the “Living Green” insert in today’s paper. Earlier this month, I was contacted by a reporter who saw my inquiries on the HawaiiMoms.com forum regarding cloth diapers. She asked if I would be open to an interview and photo for an upcoming article on living green. Sure, why not? As a result, she used a few of my quotes and featured the photo (above) that Hubby took of me cleaning the bathroom mirror with Clear Power glass cleaner – a safe, ammonia-free, biodegradable product made by Melaleuca. (More on that in a future post.)
Everywhere you look, there are signs of the changing times. Americans are finally starting to wake up and realize that we can’t continue to be a country bent on consumption. The “green” movement has gone mainstream and people are realizing that there is truth to what those radical tree-hugging environmentalists have been preaching all along.
There’s something about pregnancy that changes the way a woman thinks and sees the world. Ever since the reality of motherhood hit me, I have been contemplating things that never crossed my mind in the past: things like organic food, safer cleaning products for my home, and saving the planet for future generations.
One of the things I’ve been researching lately is using cloth vs. disposable diapers. I’ve been asking friends, making queries on HawaiiMoms.com, and scouring the web for information about the pros and cons of both. It seems that the benefits of using cloth diapers far outweigh the convenience of disposables in terms of cost, health of the baby, and less harm to the environment. All three factors are equally important to me in making this decision.
The statistics of the environmental impact of disposable diapers were staggering.
In 1988, over 18 billion diapers were sold and consumed in the United States that year. Based on our calculations (listed below under “Cost: National Costs”), we estimate that 27.4 billion disposable diapers are consumed every year in the U.S.
The instructions on a disposable diaper package advice that all fecal matter should be deposited in the toilet before discarding, yet less than one half of one percent of all waste from single-use diapers goes into the sewage system.
Over 92% of all single-use diapers end up in a landfill.
In 1988, nearly $300 million dollars were spent annually just to discard disposable diapers, whereas cotton diapers are reused 50 to 200 times before being turned into rags.
No one knows how long it takes for a disposable diaper to decompose, but it is estimated to be about 250-500 years, long after your children, grandchildren and great, great, great grandchildren will be gone.
Disposable diapers are the third largest single consumer item in landfills, and represent about 4% of solid waste. In a house with a child in diapers, disposables make up 50% of household waste.
Disposable diapers generate sixty times more solid waste and use twenty times more raw materials, like crude oil and wood pulp.
The manufacture and use of disposable diapers amounts to 2.3 times more water wasted than cloth.
Over 300 pounds of wood, 50 pounds of petroleum feedstocks and 20 pounds of chlorine are used to produce disposable diapers for one baby EACH YEAR.
In 1991, an attempt towards recycling disposable diapers was made in the city of Seattle, involving 800 families, 30 day care centers, a hospital and a Seattle-based recycler for a period of one year. The conclusion made by Procter & Gamble was that recycling disposable diapers was not an economically feasible task on any scale.
Making the decision to use cloth diapers did not come easy. There were many factors to consider and being the completely clueless newbie mom that I am, I knew nothing about cloth diapers and how far they’ve come since the old-fashioned flat cotton sheet and safety pins option. The thought of having to do origami with a piece of cloth with every diaper change was daunting. Working with sharp safety pins while diapering a fidgety newborn also didn’t sound like a good idea. So, I did research. Lots and lots of research.
How cute is this!?
I discovered that cloth diapers now come in a variety of types. Karen’s Cloth Diapering Site provides descriptions of them all, so I won’t rehash it here. I’ve narrowed it down to two brands of pocket diapers: Bum Genius and Fuzzi Bunz. Before I make a decision, I’m hoping to make a trip to Baby aWEARness (Manoa Marketplace, Hawaii) sometime soon to look, touch and feel the diapers in person as well as speak to the folks there to get their opinion on them. Unfortunately, you won’t find a large selection of cloth diapers at most baby stores in Hawaii, so I’m hoping I will be pleasantly surprised by Baby aWEARness, which is touted to be a “natural parenting store” and highlights many different types of cloth diapers on their website. If not, I may find myself having to purchase the cloth diapers online.
These convenient (and cute!) cloth diapers don’t come cheap, however. Running between $17-20 each diaper, the initial investment may be high, but at least you’re not having to run out to Costco each week to buy a case of disposables. I’ve been told that the resale value is also quite good — so in a few years, you may see my Fuzzi Bunz on sale at eBay. Overall, there is a substantial savings by using cloth diapers — especially if you decide to launder them yourself rather than sending them out with a diaper service.
I’ll continue detailing my cloth diapering endeavors here. Hopefully others may benefit from the information as they consider their own diaper dilemma. It’s all an adventure.
Here are some additional links that provide helpful information about cloth diapering (thanks to a very knowledgeable mama on HawaiiMoms.com:
Why use cloth? http://www.diapernet.org/whycloth.htm
Forums to learn & buy: http://www.diaperswappers.com
Vendor & product reviews: http://www.diaperpin.com
And a few of my own favorites that I’ve been frequenting:
HawaiiMoms.com
Oahu AP Mamas
Cotton Babies
Bum Genius
Fuzzi Bunz
