There is a lot to think about when you have a new baby, college funds to set up, and nurseries to paint. Everything has to be perfect for your bundle of joy; however have you given much thought to the kind of diaper you will use? Not only do you have a choice between pampers and Huggies but now you have eco-friendly diapers to now think about. Eco friendly diapers are diapers that have less impact on the environment from manufacturing to end use.
Your first thought may be cloth diapers. These have been around for generations and have little impact on the environment in that they never wind up in a landfill. You simply rinse, wash, and re-use, they do come with some disadvantages though. Leaky plastic pants that never fit correctly and are made of petroleum by-products.
Disposable Diapers
So what exactly constitutes an environmentally friendly diaper? Well, for starters, the way it is manufactured. Most large name diaper manufacturers dump huge amounts of dioxins, solvents, and heavy metals in the form of wastewater.
After consumers use the diapers, they wind up in landfills where they will remain for many years. When you consider the average child will go through 5000 diapers between birth and potty training you begin to get an idea of just how many diapers are in landfills.
Health Impact of Disposables
Along with being a menace to the planet there is mounting evidence that disposable diapers are also harmful to the health of our children. Remember the warning on tampons for years about toxic shock? Well, that was said to be caused by super-absorbent polymer, the same substance in diapers that turns to those gel like beads.
There is also the matter of dioxins produced by the bleaching process, while much of this goes out in wastewater it has been found in trace amounts on disposable diapers. This chemical is a carcinogenic and endocrine disruptor, neither of which sounds good for a child trace amount or not.
Then there is the presence of plastic, which is petroleum by product. Petroleum you may know is oil and can be toxic. This plastic also seals the diaper so that fluids do not leak everywhere, in the process it also keeps air from circulating and traps heat. This makes a disposable diaper prime breeding ground for bacteria.
Environmentally Friendly
Thankfully, there is now an alternative to both cloth and disposable diapers. Eco friendly diapers are environmentally sound and made from natural products that are not harmful to your child’s health.
The absorbent materials are made from farmed fluffy pulpwood and the outer shell is made of water resistant breathable material. The best thing about them is they are completely biodegradable; you can compost them in as little as sixty days. This is amazing considering that a disposable diaper is still intact after a full year underground!
Needless to say that, with nearly 20 billion diapers a year going into landfills, it is time to do something. A diaper that decomposes in such a short amount of time is bound to catch on.
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