Do your baby and the environment a favour and switch to cloth diapers. Disposable plastic diapers pose an obvious environmental concern but are also worse for your baby than their reusable counterparts. As is so often the case, the choice that’s better for you and your child is also better for the planet.
Disposable diapers like anything else disposable result in an enormous increase in waste. Good quality cotton diapers can generally last up to a hundred washings or more, meaning you’ve saved a hundred disposables from filling up landfills, and you’ve avoided the production and transportation of those hundred, too.
Just how much waste are we talking about? It has been estimated that roughly two billion tons of untreated diaper waste, including urine, feces, and a variety of plastics, end up in landfills every year, ending up ultimately in groundwater and nearby ecosystems.
American babies alone require about 80,000 pounds of plastics annually, and over 200,000 trees, for their disposable diapers. Disposables even those which claim to be biodegradable can take decades and even centuries to break down; and some of the plastics in disposable diapers will never fully decompose.
From a health perspective, disposable diapers are full of chemicals and plastics associated with a variety of problems, and which are known to increase things like diaper rash. Form-fitting disposable diapers also generally have poorer air flow, which contributes to diaper rash as well.
Ultimately, the procedure for cleaning cloth diapers is fairly straightforward, and in many places can be left to professional organizations who will pick up and drop off at your door and the impact on your baby and on the planet are undeniable.
