Why I Choose Cloth

By:  Angelique Mullen

Before my daughter was born almost two years ago, I had every intention of using cloth diapers. As a frugal, environmentally sensitive person, I thought reusable diapers were the most eco-friendly and cost effective choice on the market. My husband agreed, and we established an order with the local diaper service company, bought a diaper pail and some covers, and waited for our baby to be born.

However, it didn’t exactly work out the way I planned. During those first few weeks of her life, I felt unprepared for the number of diaper changes we would experience. The books and the doctors all say that newborns need to be changed ten times a day on average. For us, it felt like twenty times a day! It seemed easier to diaper our daughter in disposables, since we had been given a bunch of them from a friend, they were so easy to use, and we got used to them. With all that we had to remember with respect to baby care, I couldn’t be bothered with cloth diapers during the first few weeks. When my husband finally talked me into putting one on our daughter’s bottom, I found it to be too big and bulky, not to mention uncomfortable-looking. The covers didn’t fit right, and she leaked. I was turned off. For the first five months, we used cloth only a third of the time, at my husband’s insistence. When it was my turn to change her diaper, I would always put her back in disposables.

I was secretly disappointed. I had always dreamed of being a natural mama - using cloth diapers, exclusively breastfeeding, co-sleeping, and making my own baby food. I didn’t believe in playpens, junk food, and toxic chemicals in the home. Still, I felt like a failure. Reusing and recycling were important to me, and diapering with cloth seemed like such a loving thing to do for the planet and my baby. It was hard for me to fail at cloth diapering because it was like I had given in to the consumerist culture I had always despised. Although I was elated to be a new mother, I started to feel like I had lost touch with a part of myself.

When my daughter was five months old, it all changed for me. It was getting ridiculous paying for the diaper service while only using a third of the diapers we received every week. In the meantime, we were buying and throwing away a lot of disposables. My husband really wanted us to use cloth, but he tried to talk me into canceling the diaper service to save money. I didn’t like this idea because I wasn't ready to give up on cloth, although I knew something had to change. It was at this time that I attended a Friday parenting workshop on preparing first baby foods, when I came across a woman who embodied what I wanted to be as a mother. She sat on the floor quietly nursing her baby. She wore a sling, and carried a diaper bag stuffed with cloth diapers. I asked her about cloth diapering, and the adorable wrap that covered her son’s bottom. It was a cute print wrap with yellow and blue whales, and it didn’t look uncomfortable at all. We talked for a little while. She ended up giving me a cloth diaper pep talk. She told me that she thought disposables leaked way more than cloth, that it was all in the way you secure the cloth diaper and how snug you wrap the cover. She explained that Snappis were easier than pins, and that shaking poop off a diaper was no big deal. She encouraged me not to be afraid of bulk. She also told me where to buy good wraps and diapering supplies online. This woman seemed so easy-going and relaxed, and there was a happy confidence about her that inspired me.

I decided I had to get used to cloth diapering, if not for the Earth, than for myself.

Angelique and baby Daphne

Contributing to the landfills?  Another problem with disposables is the raw sewage that doesn't belong in a landfill. Poops are supposed to be flushed down the toilet, and the directions on a disposable diaper package say so. However, I have yet to hear of a parent using disposable diapers taking the time and trouble to do this. All of those diapers entering the landfill are in danger of contaminating the groundwater and spreading disease. By choosing cloth, we are choosing not to contribute more garbage and more waste to already overfilled landfills. There are arguments that cloth diapers take their toll on the environment, but the damage done is nowhere near that caused by disposables. Throwaway diapers are made from mostly nonrenewable resources - plastic, oil, and non-recycled paper. It takes one cup of crude oil to make one disposable diaper. (2) That means a package of 48 diapers, which doesn’t even last a week, requires three gallons of crude oil for production. Taking this idea further, that means over 5 barrels of crude oil are used to makes diapers for only one child each year. Additionally, other non-renewable resources are used to make disposable diapers. Roughly 286 pounds of plastic are needed to diaper only one baby for only a year. As for the wood pulp in a diaper, you need about 200-400 kg. of it to make diapers for one baby for one year, whereas it takes only 10 kg. of cotton for the same baby for two years in cotton diapers. Also, it takes tons of bleach (much more than the bleach used to make cotton diapers white) to get the wood pulp in a disposable diaper white. (2)  Many people argue that cloth diapering creates the same impact because too much water is used to wash the diapers. Sure, you need to use water to wash diapers, but it also takes a lot of water to grind wood pulp for disposables.

According to the Landbank Consultancy Report, it takes twice as much water to produce disposables, three times more energy, and twenty times more raw materials.  At least the water that is used to wash cloth diapers goes into the sewage system, where it is properly treated at a wastewater plant. Overall, the water used to rinse and wash cotton diapers every three days is equivalent to an adult person flushing the toilet 5-6 times the day. (4)

New parents today face a challenge when they decide to cloth diaper their new baby. A decade ago, diaper services were more common and it was easier to buy covers and supplies at local stores. Today, the prices of the remaining diaper services have risen because the companies often have a wider area of delivery, a result of other services going out of business. For me, the cost of diapering with a service versus using disposables was about the same, which is why we eventually decided to wash diapers ourselves. However, the diaper services are wonderful because they are very convenient, and they do the dirty work for you. It is sad that many areas of the country do not have services that deliver anymore. The only way for people in those areas to cloth diaper is to wash their own, a task many people are not willing to undergo. Most of the major baby stores do not sell cloth diapers, and if they do, the ones they sell are not diaper service quality, which are the most absorbent cloth diapers on the market. This is not a problem for those of us who are willing to search and order online. There are some good quality diapers being sold online by work at home moms who put a lot of love and care into their diapers. In fact, the whole world of cloth diapering has changed dramatically, with more and more choice out there for the online consumer. (5) Unfortunately, this choice is limited to people whom have Internet access and the means to order products online.

As a society, our attitudes about diapering have changed. Even our language has changed, as it seems that people now refer to disposables as "normal" diapers. People are also afraid of the poop factor. I have experienced this personally with some of the mothers I encounter on the playground. So many of them look at me in shock when they find out that I wash my baby's diapers. They ask me, in all seriousness, “What do you do with the poop?” I try to explain that it really isn’t a big deal, that I just shake it over, or sometimes dunk it in the toilet, then throw the diaper in a dry pail, and wash the diapers every couple of days. I explain that mothers have been diapering with cloth for many generations and our own mothers used cloth.. However, these moms seem horrified at the thought of having to interact in any possible way with their child’s feces. To me and the others who cloth diaper, this is just part of life. It seems to me that if the mother isn’t willing to do the dirty work, no one will. The time has come for families to become educated.

Every month, families across the world are throwing hundreds of disposable diapers away. At the same time older children are being taught in school to take care of the Earth. Being a parent is exhausting, and the thought of cloth diapering can be overwhelming to someone not used to the idea. To some, like the mothers I encounter at the playground, it seems “yucky”. However, we know that the personal choices of the public are creating this problem. The only way people are going to change is through education about their diapering choices. It’s time to let parents know that cloth diapering today is not the same as it was back in the days of wet pails, borax, and flat diaper folding. Some of the diapers available today, like all in ones (AIOs), are as easy to use as disposables, sans the washing. In today’s cloth diapering world, using prefolded diapers, Snappis and wraps have made diapering much easier.

We make choices in everything we buy and consume. Almost every product we purchase and bring into our lives will have some impact on the environment of our planet. We need to determine which products are less harmful. For instance, if we are lucky, we have choices on how to get to work - either walking, riding a bike, taking the bus, carpooling, or driving. Even taking the bus or riding a bike just once a week can save gasoline and energy, adding less pollution to the atmosphere. There are choices in doing laundry, eating out, and feeding our families, too. Just think of the energy saved when laundry is hung on a clothesline, even half the time. When drinking a beverage, think of all the plastic straws that get thrown away after only one use. These days, parents can choose to use disposable bibs, changing mats, wipes, and plastic mats that lay down on a restaurant table. It seems sanitary, but where do these items go when they are thrown away after only one use? They end up in a landfill that gets more and more crowded. By keeping these things in our minds, we start to realize everything is a choice. Diapering is also a choice. As someone who struggled to make this choice, I can tell you unequivocally that it is one I do not regret. Because young babies and toddlers are watching what we do and say, and because of the impact diaper waste will have on our future planet, it is important for those of us who care about protecting the earth and our children’s health to do whatever we can to educate, promote, and encourage cloth diapering.

Sources:

(1) McConnell, Jane. The Joy of Cloth Diapers. Mothering: May/June 1998, issue 88.
(2) Sanders, Heather. The Diaper Drama. The Diaper Hyena.
(3) Hollis, Robert. The Diaper War: Not About to Bottom Out. Mothering, Summer 1991, Issue 60.
(4) The Landbank Consultancy Limited, A Review of Proctor & Gamble’s Environmental Balances for Disposable and Re-usable Nappies, July 1991.
(5) Schmitt, Laura. Crazy For Cloth. Mothering, Jan/Feb 2003, Issue 116.