Cloth Diapers - Part One

I used cloth diapers when my son was a baby, and will use them on this baby as well.  Since I have experience with them, it's not uncommon for people who are interested in using them to ask me for advice or help - so I thought I'd put some of the basic information here.

First off - the WHY.  Haha.  Many people are completely unaware how far cloth diapers have come and what cloth diapering is like today... they hear "cloth diaper" and they still have an image of flat cloths, pins, rubber pants and bleach pails in their head.  They wonder WHY in the world anyone would want to use cloth in this day and age and look at me like I have two heads.

To first clear up that misconception, modern cloth diapers are now much easier to use than they use to be.  They look and function very much like a disposable diaper, only they are made of cloth and they fasten with velcro tabs.  They come in cute, fun colors and prints and they have many options to cut down on the "yuck" factor, such as disposable liners that make flushing solid waste a cinch (they kind of look like a dryer sheet).  Or diaper sprayers that attach to your toilet so you can easily spray off solids.  They are a lot easier and a lot more fun than they ever use to be.

However, there are many more reasons to use cloth, besides the ease of use they offer now.  Such as saving money.  Who doesn't love that??  Disposable diapers cost around $80 per month, per baby.  Add that up over 12 months and an average of 3 years and you're looking at spending nearly $3,000 on diapers per child.  Cloth will cost $500-$1000 (depending on what you buy) and you can sell them after you're done with them recuperating about 50% of the cost, or use them on another child, also extending the savings.  How many times have you changed a baby or seen a baby changed, only to have them poo in to a fresh diaper, not even used for 5 minutes?  Bummer, right??  With cloth, it doesn't matter when that happens because you aren't throwing it away!  And forget about trying to sell used disposable diapers to recoup any of the money you spent on them.  Lol.

If cost isn't enough, what about health?  Think of all the chemicals that are in disposables to make them more absorbent.  Do you want that against your baby’s bottom 24/7?  Your skin is like a sponge - so it’s good to be conscious about what you’re putting next to your baby’s skin for the next 2-3 years, 24 hours a day. Disposables contain Sodium Polycrylate – the stuff that makes diapers super absorbent. This chemical was banned in 1985 from use in tampons because it was linked to toxic shock syndrome!  No studies on how it affects infants have been done.

Also, disposables also use dioxin to bleach the diaper materials white. This chemical has been reported by the EPA as the “most toxic of all cancer linked chemicals”. It’s use has been banned in most countries except the US. It is known to cause damage to the central nervous system, kidneys and liver. The FDA has reported: rashes, chemical burns, and noxious chemical odors.  Cloth has no harmful chemicals used or added to cloth diapers.

Still think cloth is weird?  What about the environment?   

About 2 tons of non-biodegradable waste per baby (82,000 tons of plastic and 1.8 million tons of wood pulp (1/4 million trees) are consumed each year.  An estimated 5 million tons of untreated waste and 2 billion tons of urine, feces, plastic and paper go into landfills annually.  It takes 500 years for a diaper to decompose.  Considering that disposable diapers have not even been around that long, that means that every single disposable diaper that has ever been put on a baby's bottom, is still sitting out there somewhere, fully intact.  We have also begun to dump trash in to our oceans.  Imagine the effect it must have considering all that is in diapers and human waste.  Disposables generate 60 times more solid waste and use 20 times more raw materials to make, such as crude oil and wood pulp.  The manufacturing of disposable diapers amounts to 2-3 times more waste water than cloth.  And every year, we throw away enough disposable diapers to stretch to the moon and back, 9 times!!!

Cloth diapers are made with reusable materials, like cotton and bamboo. The life expectancy of a cloth diaper is 100150 washes. Many well made products can be used for multiple children. There is no human waste going into the landfills, it goes into the sewer system with the other human waste. Washing cloth diapers at home uses about 50-70 gallons of water every 3 days, about the same as an adult flushing the toilet 5-6 times daily.  Compare diapers, to dishes. You wouldn’t live using all paper or plastic plates & cutlery, throwing them away with a single use every single time right? That is wasteful. Instead you buy durable dishes that can be washed and reused.  So why not apply that same logic to diapers? Do we really need to throw something away & replace it every time a baby urinates or has a bowel movement?  Especially something that we're using about 10 of, per day?


So that's all for today.  Another day soon I will write about the different types of cloth diapers for those interested in getting started.