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The Great Diaper Debate
Two recent articles in Salon and Slate have brought up the great diaper debate, and have shed some more light on why cloth is probably the best bet from an environmental perspective. That doesn’t mean that it’s easy, and our family has done both - Atari was totally cloth, and Rudy is currently doing disposable, but my reading has reminded me that I probably want to look into a diaper service again. (we can’t wash at home because of plumbing issues our landlord doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to address). As with all things parenting, you do what works. Either way of course is a shitty situation.
People assume you’re debating two environmental issues: water usage and landfills. It’s not that simple. And what about gDiapers?
What we know about cloth: lots of water usage, both from growing cotton and heavy washing. Washing at home is time-consuming and a huge pain in the ass.
Disposables: you go through thousands of them, creating a huge amount of solid waste that fills up landfills. They contain trace amounts of pollutants Dioxin and Tributyl-tin. Seventh Generation doesn’t bleach, ergo fewer toxins, but they still have petroleum-based plastic linings.
Oh yeah, petroleum! It’s in our plastic, and comes from oil, which comes from countries that hate us (like Canada).
gDiapers are theoretically biodegradable, but as with all things, need exposure to sunlight to break down. Not a whole lot of sunlight in the landfill. gDiapers claim that solid waste removed in the wastewater treatment system can be eventually turned into fertilizer (yuck, I know), but usually they end up in landfills.
The literature out there is all over the map. Salon cites a study that claims that disposables use “3x the energy and 2x the water”, and with non-renewable energy use, it all of a sudden becomes a global warming issue. A non-profit group, Real Diaper Association has a good fact sheet with a solid bibliography. One of the heads of the RDA owns a few cloth diaper manufacturing concerns, so as always with issue, a grain of salt.
Simplicity isn’t always simple. gDiapers are still relatively new, so nobody’s done a cradle-to-grave Life Cycle Assessment - since they only use a little bit of paper (a sort-of renewable resource), they might do better than cotton. But with cotton you get the benefit of hyper-absorbent rags that will outlast your kids diapering days. Useful for cleaning up all that blood soda in the basement.
I guess I have to mention composting. Then laugh.
I’ve had a long and spirited debate with a friend who is a prof of Conservation Biology at Brown, and is very serious about greening-up his life. His conclusion was that if you live in a place with a lot of rain, go cloth because you aren’t using too much water. If you’re in an arid environment or experiencing drought, go disposable.
But my feeling was that you’re just outsourcing your water waste - it takes a lot of water to manufacture diapers industrially, and that water has to come from somewhere. Of course, one of the many little voices in my head said, “if the cotton was grown in Egypt, for example you’re totally screwing somebody else over.” I’m still conflicted about this but my gut is that given everything else, since the earth is a closed system, you’re helping the planet out more by going cloth.
Looking forward to your comments - flame on!
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Offsprung Columns
My two cents on gDiapers: we used them a little bit, and a messy poop was like the end of the world. THE END OF THE WORLD.