Future Fridays: Wash...Rinse...Dry...Repeat...

When the family gathered in the Vermont to see Joseph graduate from college, flying with Samantha (then age 9 months) was a first for her parents, Daniel and Claudia. As with all new parents, they made a mistake.  They packed her diapers in checked luggage without thinking!  If you have ever been a parent, it is almost certain that sometime or other you ended up without enough diapers!

They realized their mistake en route in Panama, but in that airport NO store sold diapers.  None!

Mid-way through the 6-hour flight on to Boston, they ran out of diapers… here came Nana and experience to the rescue!  Crammed into the plane’s bathroom, I twisted, folded, and tied a receiving blanket into a make-shift diaper that lasted until their luggage came off the belt at the end of the flight.

Years ago, with my little ones, I mostly used cloth diapers.

The poor never use disposable diapers because they are expensive.  Instead most use big cotton pieces of cloth that they wash constantly and hang out to dry.  If lucky, they have enough for 2 days-worth of diapers that are always getting washed.  No rubber pants, just a few diaper pins and large rectangular pieces of cloth.

Disposable diapers make up the third largest item of consumer trash in landfills in the United States and make up 30% of the non-biodegradable trash.  Disposable diapers will break down IF exposed to sunlight and the elements in 500 years, but most are turned over into the dirt meaning it will take thousands of years for them to break down.

Disposable diapers contaminate the water tables with feces and urine from the diapers.  Supposedly, one is supposed to rinse out the diapers in the toilet before disposing of them. Did you know that? I never have done that, but it is written on the side of boxes of disposable diapers.

Disposable diapers are a poor use of oil, gas, and other awful chemicals… and trees… so many trees.

From Small Footprint Family:*

Even factoring in the water and energy used to launder cloth diapers, in the full-cost accounting, from farm to factory to storefront, compared to cloth diapers, disposables:

• create 2.3 times more water waste,
• use 3.5 times more energy,
• use 8.3 times more non-renewable raw materials (like oil and minerals),
• use 90 times more renewable raw materials (like tree pulp and cotton),
• and use 4 to 30 times as much land for growing or mining raw materials.

The poor use simple cloth diapers, wash with soap and hang out to dry… no washing machine, no dryer, and no waste and no trees cut down and no crude oil.

Maybe we could learn from the poor and wrap our precious ones in cloth and wash the diapers so there will be a green world when they are potty trained.

-Kathleen (Nana)

Note:  If you care to help provide new mothers at the Nueva Vida Clinic with cloth diapers and pins, give online here:  https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/jhc-cdca

* https://www.smallfootprintfamily.com/dangers-of-disposable-diapers