The Many Reasons we use Cloth Diapers

When I was pregnant with Mattea, I did a large amount of research on many aspects of becoming a parent and what products we should use. One area I spent a lot of time researching was diapering. We came to the conclusion that cloth diapers are better, not only for the environment, but also for the baby. When we decided to cloth diaper our daughter, we had many people ask us why we chose cloth over disposables. Here are some of the reasons:

Environmental Impact:

Recently, there has been a lot of talk about whether cloth or disposable diapers are really more eco-friendly. My personal opinion is that the big companies like P&G do not like that cloth diapering is on the rise and they are trying to make parent feel like there is not that much of a difference. This is WRONG!

Did you know that the average child goes through 7,000 diaper changes in their life? For children in disposables, that is 7,000 diapers per child in our landfills. Disposable diapers are the third largest single product in the waste stream behind newspapers and beverage/food containers. It is estimated that 10,000 tons of disposable diapers are tossed into landfills each day and each diaper can take up to 500 years to decompose. It is also estimated that 18 BILLION diapers are used in the US per year. It has even been estimated that diapers in landfills can take even longer to decompose because they are not exposed to sunlight.

When disposables are thrown in the trash, the majority of parents are not flushing feces into the toilet (did you know that you are actually supposed to do this even with disposables?). This means " . . . a significant portion of the disposable diaper waste dumped in American's landfills every year is actually biodegradable human waste preserved forever (EPA)." When fecal matter and urine is flushed down the drain in toilets, it is treated. When it is placed in the landfills, the waste seeps into our ground water and can spread disease. This type of contamination is similar to what caused many of the great cholera outbreaks in the 1800s. It is estimated that 84 million lbs. of raw fecal matter are going to the environment every year.

Another important piece in understanding the environmental impact of disposable diapers is what goes into making a diaper. One source claims that disposables consume 70% more energy than the average reusable diaper per diaper change, and annually consumes 3.4 billion gallons of oil and over 250,000 trees for manufacturing.

Health and Safety of Child:
One of the biggest reasons I believe in cloth diapering is the health and safety of children. Diapers are not well regulated as a product that our children are in for 2-4 years of their life. Many of the chemicals used in disposables are known to be extremely toxic. Although there have been no studies that I am aware of to determine how the use of these chemicals can affect the child wearing the diaper, I did not want to use such a potentially toxic product on my daughter. Here are a few of the chemicals in disposables:

Sodium Polyacrylate: This is the chemical, added in powder form to the inner part of a disposable, that makes the disposable absorbant. When it becomes wet, it turns into a gel. Some parents have found these little gel crystals on their babies skin after changing their diaper. Some of its properties include:

• It can absorb up to 100X its weight in water.
• It can stick to baby's genitals, causing allergic reactions.
• Reported to cause severe skin irritations, oozing blood from perineum and scrotal tissues, fever, vomiting and staph infections in babies.
• When injected into rats it has caused hemorrhage, cardiovascular failure and death.
• Banned from tampons in 1985 because of its link to Toxic Shock Syndrome.
• Has killed children after ingesting as little as 5 grams of it.
• Causes female organ problems, slows healing wounds, fatigue and weight loss to the employees in factories that manufacture it.

Dioxin- This is the chemical by-product of the paper-bleaching process used in the manufacturing of diapers. Chlorine gas is used in this process. Some of Dioxins properties include:

• It is a carcinogenic (cancer-causing) chemical
  
• The EPA lists it as the MOST TOXIC of all cancer-linked chemicals
• In small quantities it causes birth defects, skin/liver disease, immune system suppression & genetic damage in lab animals
• Banned in most countries, but not the United States
  

Tributyl Tin (TBT) - This is a highly toxic environmental pollutant that spreads through the skin and has a hormone-like effect in even small concentrations. Some of its properties include:

• Can be harmful to the immune system and impair the hormonal system
• It is speculated that it could cause sterility in boys

Another interesting study (Archives of Environmental Health) tested six leading cotton and disposable diaper brands for asthma effects. The emissions from one disposable diaper were high enough to produce asthma-like symptoms in mice. Tolune, xylene, ethylbenzene, styrene, and isopropylbenzene are all chemicals that outgas from disposable diapers. Not surprisingly, the study found that cloth diapers do not cause respiratory problems among the lab mice.

It is also interesting to note that studies have found diaper rash to increase with disposable diaper use due to allergies to chemicals, poor air flow and longer time spent in wet diapers which feel dry when wet. The Super-Absorbent qualities of disposable diapers offer a sort of Catch 22. Yes, they wick moisture away from your baby's skin, but they also do two other things: facilitate less diaper changing from parents - which leads to rashes because of babies' exposure to the super-absorbent chemicals (more on this later), bacterial growth, and the ammonia from accumulated urine in the diaper, and pull natural moisture (not just urine) from the baby's skin, creating dryness and irritation.

Cost:
Cloth diapering can be significantly cheaper than using disposables. Although many people are put off by the upfront cost of cloth diapers, you will save a lot of money over the course of diapering a child. Although many of the newer types of cloth diapers (e.g., pockets and All-in-Ones) can cost around $20 a diaper, you will still save a significant amount of money over disposables. The average family will spend between $2000 and $3000 on disposable diapers over one child's time in diapers. Those families who use cloth diapers will generally spend between $300 and $1200 on diapers when bought new. The cost for washing the diapers is pretty negligible (I actually figured out how much water and electricity each wash and dry cycle took and figured out the cost per load). Many individuals will buy used diapers, so you can save even more money if you do not mind buying used diapers. Since there is a used diaper market, you will actually get about a 50% return on the diapers when you are done with them, and that can even be after you have used those same diapers for multiple children. In the long run, you could be saving thousands of dollars on diapers by using cloth!

Sources:
http://www.diaperpin.com/clothdiapers/article_diaperdrama.asp
http://www.diapersafari.com/diaperinfo/whyclothdiapers/
http://www.eartheasy.com/live_clothdiapers.htm
http://www.articlesbase.com/babies-articles/cost-of-cloth-diapers-a-real-savings-462079.html
http://www.diaperjungle.com/why-use-cloth-diapers.html