The Inside Poop on Diapers
If there are infants or toddlers in your life, there may be no bigger environmental decision than whether to use cloth or disposable diapers – the typical child requires up to 8,000 diaper changes before he or she is toilet trained. So which is better for the environment?
Here’s what we’ve uncovered:
Sometimes Cloth Beats Disposables…
- Cloth diapers are made from cotton, a renewable resource.
- Manufacturing disposable diapers in the U.S. uses 250,000 trees and 1.3 million tons of wood pulp.
- According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, some 18 billion disposable diapers are thrown away each year. They’re the third most common item in the average landfill behind newspapers and food and beverage containers.
- The EPA says disposables account for about 3.4 million tons of annual waste.
And Sometimes Disposables Beat Cloth
- That 3.4 million tons, however, represents only about 2% of all the trash sent to landfills each year. Why? Because disposables are less bulky than they used to be and weigh about 1/3 less than they did 20 years ago thanks to new, more efficient absorption technologies.
- Water usage was at least two times greater for cloth diapers depending on whether they were washed at home or by a service.
- Washing cloth diapers at home uses anywhere from 50 to 70 gallons of water every three days.
- Cloth diapers generally require the use of chlorine bleach for sanitizing purposes. Once rinsed down a drain, chlorine can combine with organic material naturally present in ground and surface waters to create toxins like chloroform.
And the winner is…
Both! Because when you add up all the pros and cons, the bottom line is a draw. As renowned pediatrician Dr. Alan Greene notes, the impacts created by both types of diapers tend to cancel each other out leaving no side with any clear advantage over the other.
The Union of Concerned Scientists offers the best advice: Don’t worry about it too much. There are choices to be made that have far greater impact on the environment. That said, if you live in an area where fresh water is a scarce or threatened resource, you might want to pick disposables. (Look for unbleached, chlorine-free varieties.) If you live in a part of the country where shrinking landfill space is at an ever increasing premium, cloth may be a better option.
