Why cloth diaper?

Your Baby's Health and Comfort

This is the number one reason I cloth diaper. First, comfort. I know I would rather wear cloth underpants than paper and plastic ones, and I want the same for my baby. Cloth diapers are softer and more breathable (And, in my opinion, way cuter!).

More importantly, my baby's health. Disposable diapers contain chemicals that are known carcinogens, and have been linked to asthma and male infertility.

Chemicals

Disposable diapers contain Dioxin, which is a carcinogenic chemical listed by the EPA as the most toxic of all cancer-linked chemicals. They also contain Sodium Polyacrylate (the gel used to keep babies dry and that can leak out in little beads sometimes), which can irritate the skin, eyes, and respitory system.

Male infertility

Diapers lined with plastic raise the temperature of the scrotum far above body temperature. The October 2000 issue of Archives of Disease in Childhood speculates that the significant rise in male infertility over the last 25 years might be due to the widespread use of disposable diapers.

Asthma

A study published in the October, 1999 issue of the Archives of Environmental Health (Anderson, Rosalind, and Julius Anderson. "Acute Respiratory Effects of Diaper Emissions," Archives of Environmental Health, 54, October 1999) found that laboratory mice exposed to various brands of disposable diapers suffered increased eye, nose, and throat irritation, including bronchoconstriction similar to that of an asthma attack. Six leading cotton and disposable diaper brands were tested; cloth diapers were not found to cause respiratory problems among the lab mice.

Diaper rash

Because cloth diapers allow your baby's skin to breathe, diaper rash can be more easily prevented and heal more quickly. Also, cloth doesn't have the harsh chemicals found in disposables that can cause diaper rash.

Cost

One baby will need over 6,000 disposable diapers for a 2 1/2 year diapering period (this is a conservative number, considering newborns often go through 10+ diapers a day). If you use disposable wipes as well, you will probably use at least 9,000 of those over the same period. If you use Huggies or another of the cheaper brands, they will be about $0.20 each. Pampers or other more expensive brands will run about $0.35 each. Wipes average about $0.03 each, but again, more expensive ones end up being $0.05 each. This comes out to a total of $1470 - $2550, using conservative numbers; this could easily go over $3,000.

Cloth diapering, on the other hand, is much cheaper. Here is an example of one basic package you could do:

• 26 infant prefolds = $54.00
• 26 regular prefolds = $66.00
• 12 super soaker doublers = $34.98
• 3 small covers = $27.25
• 3 medium covers = $27.25
• 3 large covers = $27.25
• 36 cloth wipes = $26.97
• Total = $263.70

On the higher end, you could do a package using fitteds and more expensive covers.
Earthy Birthy Mama offers this Kissaluvs package:

24 Kissaluvs Size 0 Unbleached Fitted Diapers
24 Kissaluvs Size 1 Unbleached Fitted Diapers
18 Kissaluvs Size 2 Unbleached Fitted Diapers
4 Kissaluvs Super Soakers (Night-time) Doublers
6 Kissaluvs Regular Booster Doublers
36 Kissaluvs Awesome Terry Wipes
2 Bottles Kissaluvs Diaper Lotion Potion
(One for home, one for the diaper bag)

Covers:
4 Newborn Pull-On Nylon Diaper Pants 2-Packs
4 Newborn Bummis Super Whisper Wrap Diaper Covers
4 Small Pull-On Nylon Diaper Pants 2-Packs
4 Small Bummis Super Whisper Wrap Diaper Covers
1 Medium Pull-On Diaper Pants 2-Pack
2 Medium Re-Uz’m Pull-On Snap-Off (POSO) Print Diaper Covers
4 Medium Bummis Super Whisper Wrap Diaper Covers
1 Large Pull-On Diaper Pants 2-Pack
2 Large Re-Uz’m Pull-On Snap-Off (POSO) Print Diaper Covers
4 Large Bummis Super Whisper Wrap Diaper Covers

Total - $899.95

Of course, you have to figure in washing costs. First figure out how many loads: 3 a week for 2.5 years (130 weeks) equals 390 loads. I found estimated cost for a load of laundry at $0.29 on the high end for a top-loader with an electric water heater and $0.08 a load on the low end for a front-loader with a gas heater (estimated from this site). For drying, the cost ranges from $0.30 - $0.40 for an electric dryer to $0.15 to $0.20 for a gas dryer (figure from this site). And then there is detergent, $0.16 a load for All Free n' Clear Detergent, or $0.25 a load for Method Free and Clear HE detergent for front loaders.

So the totals are $331.50 for an electric top-loader and dryer on the high end, and $206.70 for energy-efficient appliances on the low end.

So the grand totals are (drumroll, please!) $470.40 using basic diapers and efficent appliances (a savings of at least $999.60) to $1231.45 for premium diapers and regular appliances (a savings of at least $238.55). These figures don't take into account the fact that you can use cloth diapers again for baby #2 and baby #3, which makes the savings even more dramatic. For two babes, even using a more expensive cloth diapering system, your savings can easily go up to $2,000 or more.

The bottom line is that cloth diapers, even premium ones, are cheaper than disposables.

The Environment

It would seem at first glance that there would be no question regarding cloth's superiority in this category: reusable, biodegradable diapers that can be used over and over again (my mother still uses the ones that covered my bum as a baby as dust rags - 28 years later) vs. plastic, non-biodegradable diapers used once than thrown away, rotting in landfills, full of human waste. However, this has been called into question in the last decade (by Procter & Gamble, no less).

I would like to quote from an article in Mothing Magazine's May/June 1998 issue, written by Jane McConnell (found here in it's entirety):

Environmental awareness was at a peak, and many states were considering initiatives to tax or ban the sale of disposable diapers. Procter & Gamble, the nation's largest manufacturer of disposable diapers, fearing a loss of market share, commissioned a study by Arthur D. Little, Inc., on the environmental impact of disposable diapers. The study came to the conclusion that, lo and behold, disposables were actually no worse for the environment than cloth diapers. Procter & Gamble followed with an ad showing tree roots in compost, stating, "90 days ago this was a disposable diaper." After several lawsuits based on the fact that composting facilities for disposable diapers do not actually exist, the ad was pulled, but not until millions of parents had read and believed it. Meanwhile, the National Association of Diaper Services sponsored several reports of its own, prepared by consultant Carl Lehrburger, showing that there was a clear environmental advantage to using cloth diapers.

So which study was right? It depends on your bias. Sponsored research, or any research for that matter, is inherently subjective. The set of assumptions you start with--How many diaper changes will a baby go through in a day? Is the life of a cloth diaper 100 uses or 150?--will greatly influence the outcome of the study. Ultimately, the Little study was deemed misleading by the Advertising Standards Authority in Great Britain, and Proctor & Gamble was prohibited from mentioning the study in its advertising. However, public opinion had already been influenced.

Some of the facts: 18 billion disposable diapers are thrown in landfills each year, taking as many as 500 years to decompose. Disposable diapers make up the third largest source of solid waste in landfills, after newspapers and food and beverage containers--a significant fact, considering they are a single product, used by a limited portion of the population. It takes upwards of 82,000 tons of plastic and 1.3 million tons of wood pulp, or a quarter-million trees, to manufacture the disposable diapers that cover the bottoms of 90 percent of the babies born in the US.

Some will argue that in areas where water is scarce, disposables are the better environmental choice. However, carrying this argument to the extreme, we should be wearing disposable clothes, and using paper plates and plastic utensils. Washing cloth diapers at home uses 50 to 70 gallons of water every three days--about the same as a toilet-trained child or adult flushing the toilet five to six times a day. A diaper service puts its diapers through an average of 13 water changes, but because of the economies of scale, uses less water and energy per diaper than one laundry load at home.

Today, as a rule diaper services use biodegradable detergents not harmful phosphates. The waste water produced from washing diapers is benign, while the waste water from the manufacture of the pulp, paper, and plastics used in disposable diapers contains dioxins, solvents, sludge, and heavy metals. Chlorine bleach, whose manufacture is harmful to the atmosphere, is used in whitening diaper service diapers, but the environmental impact is far greater in the paper-bleaching process used in making disposable diapers.

Using common sense, how could the maufacturing and washing of the 5 dozen or so cloth diapers a baby would use possibly compare with the maufacturing and disposable of 6,000 plastic diapers?