I've always been a tree-hugger. Recycling is my mantra - and my co-workers think I'm a bit of a psycho about it...but it makes me feel better. Naturally - I have a bit of a problem with disposable diapers...
Here's a little info for ya:
Diapers: An average child will use between 8,000 -10,000 disposable diapers ($2,000 worth) before being potty trained. Each year, parents and babysitters dispose of about 18 billion of these items. In the United States alone these single-use items consume nearly 100,000 tons of plastic and 800,000 tons of tree pulp. We will pay an average of $350 million annually to deal with their disposal and, to top it off, these diapers will still be in the landfill 300 years from now. Americans throw away 570 diapers per second. That's 49 million diapers per day.
So I decided a long time ago that I would use cloth diapers - there are just so many options - and they actually save you money! (I'm also cheap, so this is a great thing).
There are diaper services out there (actually I'm only finding one in Chicagoland) - but it's more economical to do-it-yourself.
The cloth diaper has come a long way from the "towel with pins" that people so often think of...you know you were picturing this:
Actually there are so many easy and fun options that are in different sizes, or my favorite idea, the one-size cloth diapers! These grow WITH your baby adjusting sizes. I've been reading up on several kinds and I've heard the best reviews on 4 different brands. I'm on baby message boards finding out the information from real-life moms who have used these...but in the meanwhile - I thought I'd share:
1> Haute Pockets One-Size Cloth Diapers
2> Bum Genius 3.0 One-Size Cloth Diapers
3> Happy Heiny's One-Size Cloth Diapers
4> Wahmies One-Size Cloth Diapers
All come in a variety of colors - and most are organic fabrics which I think will be a must for me.
Anywho - just thought I'd share some of my thought processes that I'm going through these days. I actually have Dain on board with this whole extravaganza of cloth diapering - so the biggest hurdle is COMPLETE!
2 comments:
To me the most important part of cloth diapers is minimizing the kid's exposure to toxins, plastic, chlorine, bleach, etc that are in conventional diapers!
fyi, there are also non-cloth diapers called "g diapers" that are eco-friendly. they are flushable & compost-able. you can also throw them away if you have to, as they only take like 50 days to decompose (no plastics). they might be more expensive than cloth diapers, but if you start looking into diaper services, etc., it might pay off. and they're really cute!! xoxo lh.
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