Diapers

An important question all environmentally-aware parents face is what type of diapers to use for their children. You have two primary options: disposable or cloth. The first thing the anti-cloth crowd will argue is that, in a study done by Procter and Gamble in 2000 claimed that cloth diapers had similar environmental impacts to disposable diapers after you take laundering them into consideration. Right... Procter and Gamble who *gasp* makes disposable diapers! Trust this study completely, don't we?

But let's pretend for a moment we do believe this study. If there is any validity in this study, it is nonetheless a quite flawed study. First of all, if you are already using environmentally responsible laundering methods, laundering your cloth diapers should not make nearly as big an environmental impact as the study supposed. Secondly, if you choose organic cloth for your diapers, the impact of creating the diapers plummets once more. Third, many children who wear cloth diapers learn to potty train earlier than their disposable-wearing counterparts because they can feel the moisture against their skin. Thus, you'll be laundering your diapers even fewer times than the study supposed. Overall, you can see, the Procter and Gamble (cough, cough) study had the chips stacked against cloth diapers.

Read what the revered No Impact Man has to say about his experience with cloth diapers and his daughter here.

And for some darn cute cloth diapers, check out Blueberry's website.

Update: Green Is Sexy has an amazing post on diapers. Please check it out for excellent analysis, tips, and recommendations.

Image from http://ecofabulous.blogs.com