As promised (long long ago in a far away land - just kidding), I am back with my second post on cloth diapering. I'm here to answer the question, "Why on God's green earth, would I want to use cloth diapers in the first place???"
I'm so glad you asked. Ahem.
Well, God's green earth actually is a big reason. But alas, I must admit, it was not my first reason. My first reason the simple fact that I'm
Have you ever added up the cost of disposable diapers??? Holy moley, it's ridiculous, especially if you don't buy the generic store brand - which I do on the rare occasion we need a pack of disposables for longer travel.
The kind owner, Dani, of Baby Cotton Bottoms (my favorite cloth diaper store) has given me permission to use all of her research and content (because Heaven knows I won't be doing that myself), so if you want the full scoop, just click on over to her site. And nope, I'm not being paid for this review. I just really like cloth. And Baby Cotton Bottoms.
But what was I saying? Oh, yes, the cost... There is a myth out there that cloth diapers end up costing more than disposables. Well, I suppose the up front investment is more, especially if you don't include them in your baby registry, and if you use the most expensive brands, and if you buy enough for five days without washing instead of 2 or 3 (gross), and if you opt for a diaper service rather than washing them at home. But consider what Dani says:
"Your baby will go through about 6 -12 diapers a day ~ or about 9000 diaper changes by the time he/she is potty trained. At $0.24 a diaper, that adds up to about $2,160! Disposable wipes will cost another $400-500. In contrast, purchasing your own cloth diapers and cloth wipes to wash them at home will cost somewhere between $300 and $1000. Considering your laundering costs (about $.50 a load or $120 over the course of 30 months) you will still save about $2,000 - $2,500 over an average 2.5 year period! And if you reuse your diapers over multiple babies, you can multiply this savings!" That was plenty reason for me.
"Washing every third day for about 15 minutes (that's about what I spend loading, unloading, etc) translates into 300 wash loads per baby or 75 hours total. If you saved $2000 by cloth diapering, you just paid yourself over $25 an hour! If you wash every other day, you still pay yourself about $17.75 per hour. I don't know about you, but I can't argue with a wage like that!"
And if you decide to use cloth wipes too, the savings are even bigger. Why wouldn't you? If you're going to wash the diapers, you might as well wash the wipes too. Dani figures on an average of 84 wipes per week. At 4.4 cents per wipe, that's $480.
So there's the monetary savings.
My second consideration was that I really did like the idea of cloth on my baby's bum rather than disposable materials. I knew nothing about the actual contents of chemicals in disposables, but Dani does. She shares all about it here. Here's what I found out by experience: My little one's newborn tooshie had much less diaper rash with cloth and when I used my wipes juice solution, than when I used disposables from the hospital. I found that it left his skin hydrated and soft. Much better.
My third consideration was God's green earth. I am all about taking care of this planet He gave us. I'm not a fanatic, but these numbers just grossed me out. First of all, have you considered that it is actually illegal to throw away human waste in a trash can? It must be specially disposed of. Just check out any hospital. And yet, what happens to dirty disposable diapers each day? Ick! All that should be dumped down the toilet, rather than a trash can.
Dani says, "a single baby goes through about 9,000 diaper changes before they are potty trained. That adds up to about 2 tons of used, non-biodegradable waste per baby when disposable diapers are used! In 1988, over 18 billion diapers were sold and consumed in the United States that year. Estimates suggest that 82,000 tons of plastic and 1.8 million tons of wood pulp (1/4 million trees) are consumed each year in the production of disposable diapers. In 1988, nearly $300 million dollars were spent annually just to discard disposable diapers..."
"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."
"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."
Yikes!
Why use cloth diapers? It's better for our Earth. It's better for baby's skin. It's better for your bank account. Enough said.
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