DISPOSABLE DIAPERS- BETTER OR WASTE OF MONEY?

Basic information for new mommies !

Disposable diapers are a big contributor to plastic waste, but are cloth diapers any better? According to one estimate, the average baby in the US will use approximately 7,000 diapers prior to being potty trained. Most disposable diapers wind up in landfills, where it’s estimated they can take up to 500 years to degrade, releasing methane gas and microplastics into the surrounding environment.

Methane warms the planet 86 times more than CO2 over a 20 year period. According to the EPA, in 2018, disposable diapers accounted for 8% of non-durable goods in municipal solid waste streams. Non-durable household waste includes items like plastic plates and cups, which have a usage lifetime of less than three years.

The average daily plastic consumption of each disposable diaper wearing child is reportedly equivalent to seven single-use plastic bags. As the world moves away from single-use plastics, disposable diapers will likely be firmly in the cross hairs of regulators. But are cloth diapers really any better for the environment? Lobbyists that work with disposable diaper manufacturers say that water and electricity usage from washing cloth diapers and the environmental impact of producing the cotton they’re made of make them less eco-friendly than their disposable counterparts.

But a 2008 report from the UK’s Environment Agency found that washing cloth diapers in larger loads and line drying them reduces the overall carbon footprint by 16%, while reusing the same diapers with future children, exclusively line drying them and washing them in fuller loads could lower the overall carbon footprint by as much as 40%.
So when used in an efficient manner, cloth diapers can be up to 40% better for the environment from a carbon emissions standpoint. However, the plastic waste generated by disposable diapers is just too much to overlook in terms of tangible environment impact.