Actually, it’s not THAT easy, I’m realizing. Kermit was right, I guess. But it is easy to want to be green, to fall in love with the thought of it. At least for me. But the execution always seems to be a lot harder.
Take, for example, my new obsession with cloth diapers. For a long time, I thought that people that used them were a bit crazy. I mean, not in a bad way, but you’d have to be pretty gung ho green to accept the challenge. I mean, come on, you got the smells to deal with. The annoying little pins. And then washing poop in your laundry machine?? EWWW. Plus, I grew up in India where that’s all there was when I was a baby. Seems like if I have modern conveniences available to me, why not use them?
And then a few weeks ago, G and I went to a basic baby care class and they passed around some different diapers. They weren’t pushing any particular type, but just had some out there for people who haven’t had have much exposure to diapers before. And a compostable diaper caught my attention. I had no idea they had such things, and when we got home, G and I started looking them up. The thing is, you go through a LOT of diapers, and it does make us feel bad. And G and I do actually try to be green when we can – we started composting recently because we started feeling bad about all our food waste. Last year, we were quite actively looking into installing solar panels and would have likely installed them if we had sure we’d actually live in our current house for much longer. We even have recycled dogs, in that they’re mostly all pound puppies. J I mean, it’s not like we’re one step away from moving to an ecological commune and pooping into a bucket or anything like that, but it’s nice to do what we can to reduce our impact on the world.
Anyway, when we got home G showed me a link to some compostable diapers on Amazon. But looking into it a bit, we noticed that that particular brand was only 70% compostable. I mean, come on, if we’re going to shell out the slightly extra dough for compostable diapers, I want them to be 100% biodegradable. So I started Googling. And guess what? It turns out that it doesn’t matter how compostable a diaper is. The problem is that unless you take them to a composting facility, they end up in a landfill anyway. And apparently, nothing degrades in a landfill. So what would be the point? Commercial composting facilities that can handle diapers are apparently few and far between in the US.
So we moved on . . . turns out there are a few diaper services around that deliver compostable diapers and take them away each week. That’s not a bad option. Unfortunately none of them deliver to our little hole in the wall.
Then I ran across these things called GDiapers. Compostable diapers that you can flush down the toilet. Or compost in your own home composter. Either way, they don’t end up in the landfill! Aside from the slight EW factor associated with diapers mixing into our compost bin along with our veggie remains, seems ingenious right? I started reading reviews and asking people about them. For one thing, I gotta say, they’re adorable. Not the compostable part. But basically, you buy outer waterproof covers that you have to wash and reuse. And then they sell the flushable inserts. And the covers are kinda cute. They seem to have a fairly loyal following, but there are also naysayers out there as well. People that complain about the diapers clogging up their toilets, about the inserts not being that cheap. It’s true. It costs as much to buy the inserts as it does to buy disposables. To me, it seems like a great alternative. But I guess to people that look to cloth diapers as an inexpensive alternative, GDiapers just don’t make the cut.
And of course, that’s how I got led into the cloth diaper research. Crazy how a simple Google search can totally alter your outlook on something. It turns out that there are a lot of cloth diaper psychos out there. People who live and breathe by the cloth diaper, who wash their own, and join forums to lead others into the light. People who, and I kid you not, even make their own diapers and detergent solutions. And one of the key things they repeat over and over again is that cloth diapers are not the old school disgusting things that we probably all picture. For one, they come pre-folded now. You don’t have to fold them up yourself and put a big pin on each side. You can get Velcro and snaps. You get the cloth diaper, and you also have to use an outer waterproof cover. And the outer covers are pretty cute. There’s also a bit of research out there that shows that kids who use cloth diapers get fewer diaper rashes (because you have to change them more often – disposables are very absorbent and people tend to try to go as long as possible between changes). Also, kids who use cloth potty train sooner because they’re more aware of themselves being wet.
When you start getting into it, it’s not all peaches ‘n cream, of course. You use a lot more water and detergent when you use and wash your own cloth. The most environmentally conscious way to do it is to use biodegradable detergents and line dry the diapers. Or use a service that washes so many at once that it’s worth the materials. Also, cotton is one of the worst crops in the world in terms of pesticide use. So using organic cotton is best, although most diaper services don’t provide them. Or G found some bamboo diapers which apparently are awesome because bamboo grows like crazy and thrives without fertilizer or pesticides and without draining the soil’s nutrients. And again, how cute are they? This is what I mean by it being easy to be green but not at the same time. There’s lots of info out there and of course nothing is without environmental impact. The key for us is to find something that we can live with. I’m not going to be a stay-at-home mom, I’m not sure I’m ready to tackle on washing a load of bamboo diapers every other day and hanging them out to dry. Sorry.
And man, once you start looking at one green thing, it’s easy to get wrapped up in that too. For example, there are all kinds of biodegradable wipes out there, or cloth wipes too for that matter. OR disposable and non-disposable bamboo wipes. Needless to say, I don’t know what to focus on more these days, my Huffington Post addiction or my search for green baby items. And kind of randomly, I discovered that actually, I’m not alone: apparently something like 69% of people report being more green when they get pregnant/have their first child. How bizarre is that? Do you think it’s hormonal?
Anyway, so we’re still unsure what we’ll do in the long run. But, after some difficulty, I did find a cloth service that’ll deliver to our little town. They don’t have the fancy compostable or organic options, just straight forward cotton. Figure for now, we’ll test it out and see how we do. Maybe also get a few cute little bamboo diapers and GDiapers and see how it feels to wash them ourselves every once in a while. And of course we have a lot of disposables given to us by friends, so we’ll throw those into the mix during the first month or two also and see what we like best. Cost-wise, it’s probably the same or cheaper to do the service as it is to buy disposables. With that, and the fact that they bring them to your door, it seems a shame to not give them a shot.
The funny thing is how quickly I’ve turned 180 on the issue. When we first started discussing it, G was the one who thought that even washing our diapers might not be as hard as it sounds. How much effort is it to throw one more load in the wash, we’ll be doing more loads already with all the baby stuff? And while I’m still resistant to that idea, the thought of it doesn’t gross me out as it used to. Within the span of a day or two, I went from “no way in hell” to “maybe, if it’s not too much hassle.”
So we’ll see where we end up.
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