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ENVIRONMENTAL QUICK FACTS
1) Disposable diaper manufacturers recommend that you dispose of the fecal matter in
the toilet prior to discarding the diaper (have you ever seen anyone actually do this?).
Disposables contribute 84 million lbs of fecal matter into the landfills per year,
which according to the World Health Organization is ILLEGAL.
2) 250,000 trees are cut annually for single-use diapers (Sanders, 2001). Today's
parents will be grandparents before those trees grow back. We are losing forests
and the wildlife for diapers used for about 2 hours and then thrown away. Cloth
diapers are made from cotton plants that are harvested each year, not cut down
and destroyed.
3) It takes about 1 cup of crude oil to manufacture the plastics in a disposable diaper
(Cradle to Grave Disposable Diaper Story). In the estimated 8,000 diapers each baby uses, that's 500 gallons of crude oil consumption(per baby).
4) It takes less water to wash a cloth diaper than to manufacturer a plastic one.
Washing uses simple compounds like soap and bleach. Single use diaper
making is notorious for causing harmful chemicals to result like dioxin.
5) Our diapers help reduce waste, and are reusable and recyclable. At our facility
each diaper is washed, sanitized and reused an average of 75 times over a two
year period. After that each diaper is "retired" to another life as a cleaning cloth or
auto detailing rag.
6) When you use cloth diapers YOU ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE! Over the
course of the diapering years, one baby using only single-use, disposable
diapers will contribute over ONE TON of waste per baby (including fecal matter) to
our landfills.
That's one ton of waste you have SAVED OUR EARTH (Diapers in the
Waste Stream 1989).
How Our Choice Affects the Environment
The basic concept is the same, reusable products that have a long life span are a better environmental choice than single-use products with a short lifespan. We think the environmental advantages of natural cloth (cotton) diapers are clear. See cloth diapers versus disposables.
Videos & Articles
The New Parents Guide - Cloth vs. Disposables "The untreated waste placed in landfills by dirty disposable diapers is also a possible danger to contaminating ground water."
The Diaper Hyena "Do not be fooled into thinking you are making a GREEN choice just because your disposable diaper packaging labels the diaper as 85% biodegradable."
A Tale of Two Diapers explains how single use diapers used "deceptive advertising" when they made claims relating to recyling and composting.
"I have used both disposables and cloth diaper service. I just want to say that cloth diapering is easy and I feel good about helping the environment."
Molly Greschak
We believe that cloth diapers are better for our earth than disposable diapers and here are some facts that backup our belief.
