Cloth Diapers and Cotton
A common question I hear about cloth diapers is , “If conventional cotton is grown with pesticides, how can cloth diapers be better for the environment?” While this is a valid question, it ignores a whole lot of other very important points. Consider that you can buy many types of cloth diapers made from organic cotton, bamboo, hemp, and other fabrics that do not require pesticides.
Yes, traditional cotton is grown with WAY more chemicals than most people would ever believe. However, we don’t wear
paper shirts to avoid conventionally grown cotton t-shirts. Either we spring for the more expensive organic, or we reduce, reuse, recycle. It is still more environmentally responsible to reuse a cotton diaper 200 times than it is to throw away a petroleum/wood/
Yes, cloth diapers do use water to wash, but we don’t suggest that adults start using disposables to avoid flushing the toilet. Flushing the toilet throughout the day uses about the same amount of water as washing cloth diapers, but again, no one
suggests we refuse to potty train a toddler for fear they will use too much water.
What this question really ignores though, is that disposable diapers do not grow in stores. One little disposable diaper looks so clean, white and harmless. Then realize that each baby will use about 6,000 or more diapers in two years. Now, think about the fact that when those diapers are thrown away they are no longer so clean! With billions (really!) of disposable diapers being used in the US each year, we are looking at wasting massive amounts of space in landfills for our convenience.
Manufacturing a disposable diaper requires someone to drive out into the woods, cut down a tree, haul oil from across the ocean, create bleach and whatever other chemicals they use including sodium polyacrylate (those gel beads). Haul all that stuff to various factories to make it into raw materials. Haul the raw materials to another factory, make the diapers. Truck the diapers to a warehouse, then to another warehouse, then to your grocery store, then you drive to the store to buy them. Meanwhile, 300 pounds of wood products, 50 pounds of petroleum, and 20 pounds of bleach have been used to produce enough diapers for ONE baby for one year. Then, after you use the diaper, the encased human waste (cause almost no one actually flushes it like they should) is trucked to a landfill where it will sit for 250-550 years or so. That is a whole lot of chemicals and whole lot of petroleum used to truck around that diaper.
These diapers, in turn, expose your baby to asthma inducing chemical off-gassing, dioxins, high heat in the diaper area that has been linked to male sterility, and choking hazards from diapers that tear (yes, kids choke on disposable diaper parts and on the gel inside them).
Many cloth diapers these days are made from artificial fibers. Again, the environmental impact of the fabric, manufacturing, shipping, etc., is there, but there is no comparison to what goes into making the same number of disposable diapers that would replace one cloth diaper. Most synthetic diapers have the added advantage of offering a “stay-dry” lining that can help prevent rashes and require less frequent changing than cotton diapers.
Polyester is more environmentally friendly in some ways than cotton. Polyester washes and dries more quickly than cotton, so over the life of the item it can actually take fewer resources to produce and care for a polyester diaper than a cotton one. When you look at the lifetime impact of any item from a t-shirt to a cloth diaper, there is a lot more to look at then just how it was made or grown.
A few questions to ponder:
* How was the fiber in this product made or grown? (organic cotton is better than conventional cotton, but for some products man-made fibers may be better than organics)
* How did it get here? How efficient/fair was the manufacturing? (made in the USA or shipped overseas? buy local or from across the country? sewn in a sweatship or made by a work at home mom?)
* How long will I use it? (single use, multiple use, or heavy use – depending on the type, a cloth diaper may last through 100-300 or more washes)
* How will I clean it and dry it? (line drying has the least environmental impact)
* How will I reuse or recycle the item? (cotton cloth diapers may be used as rags, for instance)
* How will I dispose of it when I am done with it? (bamboo, hemp, cotton are all biodegradable)
More research needs to be done to help us make wise consumer decisions, but as a general rule I think we can rely on what our ancestors said:
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without!”
No matter what type of cloth diapers you choose, you can rest assured that using cloth makes just as much environmental sense as wearing cloth underwear instead of paper!
