Following is a quick primer for those of you who don't know why anyone would choose to cloth diaper. In my honest opinion, I have read a number of arguments for and against cloth. Most of the articles focus on the environmental issues, others focus on cost. Here is my list (abridged from a few websites).
Cost - If you figure that the average baby is in diapers 2.5 to three years, the average cost of
disposables was estimated recently in Consumer Reports as being between USD $1500 to $2100.
You can really cloth diaper for around USD $500. This savings increases with each child if you
reuse your diapers. (Please note that it is also possibleto go crazy and spend more if you want all
the really cute diapers out there.)
The production of disposable diapers consumes an inordinate amount of resources and energy
adding 2.8 billion tons of urine, feces, plastic and paper to landfills annually. Besides filling dwindling
landfill space, disposable diapers endanger health and the environment, especially the health of
sanitation workers. The potential for disease to spread via ground water has also been cited.
Your baby will spend the first two or three years of life almost constantly in diapers.
Do you want to spend the next two or three years wearing wood pulp, plastic and acrylic
acid polymer salts?
The average disposable wearing baby will create two tons of bio-hazardous waste that will
sit in a landfill for hundreds of years.
Disposable diapers add artifical chemical absorbents such as acrylic acid polymer salts to their
all-wood pulp padding in order to increase absorbency. These granules turn into gell when they
come in contact with moisture. This gel, which is linked to toxic shock syndrome, ends up on your baby.
Finally, cloth-bottomed babies potty train an average of a year earlier than their disposable-wearing peers!
