Cultures and kids with nappies

[LilByte]

Water has been recycled since the dawn of time and cloth diapers don’t fill landfills or stay they for 500 years before degrading. Cloth diapers also make great cleaning rags when they’re no longer suitable for use for their original purpose. The power used is offset by the power used to make disposables, the oil used as raw materials, and the fuel used to deliver them to the retailer every week as needed. The Chinese/Asian plan is probably the least environmentally offensive, but the messing wherever they take the notion isn’t the most hygienic solution. Even using “used” SAP in gardening carries the risk of importing human biological waste into the food produced which is why it’s recommended for use in flower gardens and non food related uses only. I hadn’t heard of using it in concrete, but I would be concerned adding it to any concrete that requires a high strength pound per square inch strength rating. Elimination communication is probably the only true environmentally friendly solution to this problem.

"Water has been recycled since the dawn of time."
A majority of people live in cities, cities are an island of resources. They must use chemicals and energy to move and process waist and recycle the water for irrigation. As I said in my original post depending on the area you can do more effective ways to offset that tho.

If you google cloth diapers environmental impact you will see people often saying many negative things about cloth:
1. Cotton takes far more chemicals then many other crops to grow "cotton is grown on only 2.5% of the planet's agricultural land, it accounts for 16% of all insecticides used worldwide" - The Modern Dane(top result on google )
2. Detergent production and disposal
3. Energy for the washer, and dryer
4. Water for washing. Normally hot unless proper detergent is used
To name a few

Many of these can be mitigated, but some require you to live in the right area

1. Second hand cloth diapers
2. Natural spring or rain water and some form of bio active septic solution
3. Solar/Wind and Line drying
4. Cold detergent that doesn't require intense processing and dangerous chemicals


And tho this is true, few are going to, or are able to do those required things to reach such a goal.

As for gardens. What I mean is that tho you can still find on google people saying to use diaper sap in flower gardens tho mostly unused diapers, there was an article on my google news feed claiming that it posed several problems and should not be done. I brought this part up because I have seen people here on adisc mention they use them in their gardens in the past.

As for the diapers in concrete. I agree with what you said despite what the groups doing it claim. I feel like it would cause the media to become porous when the beads go from swollen to small after the water is removed from them in the hardening process.

Concrete Made with Shredded Diapers Is Just as Strong and Saves Landfill Space

Used diapers can replace up to 40 percent of the sand that is typically used in making concrete, lowering costs and keeping more trash out of landfills

www.scientificamerican.com

To find more info if interested google "diaper concrete".

 

[Dutchpamper]

I got that too. I was potty trained at the normal age but thanks to a weak bladder I was in and out of diapers until I was almost five. I remember being at the grocery store with my mom; one of the cashiers was ringing up a pack of diapers and asked me in a very judgmental tone: “Aren’t you too old for these?” I burst into tears and the lady backpedaled; raising her hands and saying things like: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” I wish I had the knowledge and guts to say:”Why don’t you mind your own f***king business, lady?”

People can be so cruel....sorry to hear this

 

[Zeke]

"Water has been recycled since the dawn of time."
A majority of people live in cities, cities are an island of resources. They must use chemicals and energy to move and process waist and recycle the water for irrigation. As I said in my original post depending on the area you can do more effective ways to offset that tho.

If you google cloth diapers environmental impact you will see people often saying many negative things about cloth:
1. Cotton takes far more chemicals then many other crops to grow "cotton is grown on only 2.5% of the planet's agricultural land, it accounts for 16% of all insecticides used worldwide" - The Modern Dane(top result on google )
2. Detergent production and disposal
3. Energy for the washer, and dryer
4. Water for washing. Normally hot unless proper detergent is used
To name a few

Many of these can be mitigated, but some require you to live in the right area

1. Second hand cloth diapers
2. Natural spring or rain water and some form of bio active septic solution
3. Solar/Wind and Line drying
4. Cold detergent that doesn't require intense processing and dangerous chemicals


And tho this is true, few are going to, or are able to do those required things to reach such a goal.

As for gardens. What I mean is that tho you can still find on google people saying to use diaper sap in flower gardens tho mostly unused diapers, there was an article on my google news feed claiming that it posed several problems and should not be done. I brought this part up because I have seen people here on adisc mention they use them in their gardens in the past.

As for the diapers in concrete. I agree with what you said despite what the groups doing it claim. I feel like it would cause the media to become porous when the beads go from swollen to small after the water is removed from them in the hardening process.

Concrete Made with Shredded Diapers Is Just as Strong and Saves Landfill Space

Used diapers can replace up to 40 percent of the sand that is typically used in making concrete, lowering costs and keeping more trash out of landfills

www.scientificamerican.com

To find more info if interested google "diaper concrete".

I hadn’t thought about this before but concrete containing SAP may function like air entrained cement that has greater resistance to the stresses induced by freeze thaw cycles.

 

[Dutchpamper]

It looks like that poverty has something to do with it too. some years ago there was a documentary on tv about poverty. Families living in poor neighborhoods over the world were filmed during every day live. How they struggled. Some of the families had multiple older kids still in diapers or pullups. I had the same experience years ago. I worked as a postman and had to deliver in a poor neighborhood a package at an addres. I had to come in because the lady had to look for her ID card, she needed that for signing. When I came in there were 4 kids still wearing diapers only, because it was very hot outside. Age 3 till about 8. Maybe poverty has influence because they have to ‘survive’?

 

[babyboy]

If you google cloth diapers environmental impact you will see people often saying many negative things about cloth:
1. Cotton takes far more chemicals then many other crops to grow "cotton is grown on only 2.5% of the planet's agricultural land, it accounts for 16% of all insecticides used worldwide" - The Modern Dane(top result on google )
2. Detergent production and disposal
3. Energy for the washer, and dryer
4. Water for washing. Normally hot unless proper detergent is used
To name a few

Many of these can be mitigated, but some require you to live in the right area

1. Second hand cloth diapers
2. Natural spring or rain water and some form of bio active septic solution
3. Solar/Wind and Line drying
4. Cold detergent that doesn't require intense processing and dangerous chemicals


And tho this is true, few are going to, or are able to do those required things to reach such a goal.

As for gardens. What I mean is that tho you can still find on google people saying to use diaper sap in flower gardens tho mostly unused diapers, there was an article on my google news feed claiming that it posed several problems and should not be done. I brought this part up because I have seen people here on adisc mention they use them in their gardens in the past.

As for the diapers in concrete. I agree with what you said despite what the groups doing it claim. I feel like it would cause the media to become porous when the beads go from swollen to small after the water is removed from them in the hardening process.

Concrete Made with Shredded Diapers Is Just as Strong and Saves Landfill Space

Used diapers can replace up to 40 percent of the sand that is typically used in making concrete, lowering costs and keeping more trash out of landfills

www.scientificamerican.com

To find more info if interested google "diaper concrete".

1) not all cloth diapers are cotten
2) you mean the same detergent I buy to wash all my other clothing? that I would be buy anyways? sure it will go maybe 5% faster but the production and disposal is still going to be done, but since it already going to be made, so 5% more is not going to add to the envromental cost as much as building yet another building, producting even more devices that use even more electricity, another fleet of trucks for delivery..... you get to use the already existing infrusturcter.
3) you assumed using both washer and dryer, many cloth diapers users will tell you that you do not want to use a dryer, many of us line dry our diapers (oh before you say, not every one has a backyard to dry cloth diapers, I know that, as I live in a condo, I have a colapsable wooden cloth hanger I use to dry both my cloth diapers when washed and my clothing when I wash them, I just hang them on that for a day and they are dry see https://www.amazon.com/Displays-Jack-Collapsible-Retractable-Apartment/dp/B097V3JSWH/ref=sr_1_5?crid=VQ0IWU17G0YP&keywords=condo+cloth+drying+hanger&qid=1687258581&sprefix=condo+cloth+drying+hanger,aps,72&sr=8-5&ufe=app_do:amzn1.fos.18ed3cb5-28d5-4975-8bc7-93deae8f9840 for an example of what I am talking about.)
4) water is by nature recyled all the time. you ever heard of the water cycle? I learned about the water cycle back in 1st gread in the very early 80's Also not every one lives in the cities, and in the US there is the urban flight (the move to subburbs, that many complain are "killing" american cities)

Also if taken care of cloth diapers can last a LONG time, the cloth diapers I have not I got back in 2016 (infact they stopped making them in 2018 saddly, so even the newest one I have is 5 years old) and before you say well parents with babies will not keep a baby in a diaper for 5 to 7 years, true BUT the diapers can be used for the next child, or given to another person for another baby, cloth diapers could (if taken care of) be used for 3 to 4 babies from birth to potty training, vs for the first year of life of a baby in disposable it is estimated they will need 2000 to 2200 diapers just for the FIRST year of diapers. (this will be another argument for cloth diapers, while more expinsive at the start over the life of the baby, and even more for us adult diaper users, the cost of cloth is small, I spent maybe $400 on my current stash of cloth diapers, and I still use them, and given inflation I am saving even more now as I don't have to keep buying disposable,

Oh you might want to look into those that produced those "studies" that show disposable are not worse for the envroment (or the more hilarious ones where they "showed disposables are better for the envroments") you just might realize why they claimed that when you find out P&G is one of the people funding those studies

 

[LilByte]

1) not all cloth diapers are cotten
2) you mean the same detergent I buy to wash all my other clothing? that I would be buy anyways? sure it will go maybe 5% faster but the production and disposal is still going to be done, but since it already going to be made, so 5% more is not going to add to the envromental cost as much as building yet another building, producting even more devices that use even more electricity, another fleet of trucks for delivery..... you get to use the already existing infrusturcter.
3) you assumed using both washer and dryer, many cloth diapers users will tell you that you do not want to use a dryer, many of us line dry our diapers (oh before you say, not every one has a backyard to dry cloth diapers, I know that, as I live in a condo, I have a colapsable wooden cloth hanger I use to dry both my cloth diapers when washed and my clothing when I wash them, I just hang them on that for a day and they are dry see https://www.amazon.com/Displays-Jack-Collapsible-Retractable-Apartment/dp/B097V3JSWH/ref=sr_1_5?crid=VQ0IWU17G0YP&keywords=condo+cloth+drying+hanger&qid=1687258581&sprefix=condo+cloth+drying+hanger,aps,72&sr=8-5&ufe=app_do:amzn1.fos.18ed3cb5-28d5-4975-8bc7-93deae8f9840 for an example of what I am talking about.)
4) water is by nature recyled all the time. you ever heard of the water cycle? I learned about the water cycle back in 1st gread in the very early 80's Also not every one lives in the cities, and in the US there is the urban flight (the move to subburbs, that many complain are "killing" american cities)

Also if taken care of cloth diapers can last a LONG time, the cloth diapers I have not I got back in 2016 (infact they stopped making them in 2018 saddly, so even the newest one I have is 5 years old) and before you say well parents with babies will not keep a baby in a diaper for 5 to 7 years, true BUT the diapers can be used for the next child, or given to another person for another baby, cloth diapers could (if taken care of) be used for 3 to 4 babies from birth to potty training, vs for the first year of life of a baby in disposable it is estimated they will need 2000 to 2200 diapers just for the FIRST year of diapers. (this will be another argument for cloth diapers, while more expinsive at the start over the life of the baby, and even more for us adult diaper users, the cost of cloth is small, I spent maybe $400 on my current stash of cloth diapers, and I still use them, and given inflation I am saving even more now as I don't have to keep buying disposable,

Oh you might want to look into those that produced those "studies" that show disposable are not worse for the envroment (or the more hilarious ones where they "showed disposables are better for the envroments") you just might realize why they claimed that when you find out P&G is one of the people funding those studies

Note my use of the word "supposedly" worse then disposable, in my original post. That is me poking at it that I don't fully believe the claim made in many articles, however I can't refute their claim that it is still allot of resources for both. And I wanted to highlight that they are right in that cloth isn't a resources-less, green perfect answer in most cases.

I guess more of what I was trying to convey is that, If someone truly believe in environmental catastrophe. Then it shouldn't be a this option over that option when they are both bad. It should be neither when there are other options. Otherwise it just turns into virtue signalling and posturing dynamic.

It comes off as a, people are evil/bad because they are using X product, when you should be using Y product. Implying that Y product is without flaws, when they can both be very flawed from the point of view of waste.

This isn't an attack on you, I've seen many on here say the same things.
This thread like any other will be seen by many people so I wanted to address this overall idea so that people would start to realize it's not as simple as just cloth vs disposable. It's every choice along the way of diapering. The message was intended to be something many would see, and make them think about it more deeply; not as an attack on you. And I didn't want it to turn into a sub thread hijacking the main discussion.

However I now wonder if environmental concerns hold a large enough sentiment to effect diapering in many cultures. Or if the age of potty training is nearly entirely about being considered mature and in the next stage of growing up. It would be interesting if we had a map of the factors most important to each population on diapering and potty training in general. It would shed light on the stigma of diapers and the age of potty training.
As shown above, some areas due to resources/poverty can't easily diaper so they try to potty train early. I wonder if this is echoed in any areas that choose to because of environmental concerns and not just inability.

As for the water cycle thing, In urban areas waste water does not go straight into the ground under where each person lives like rain water. Most waste water is in urban areas, and goes into treatment facilities to render it safe before using it for irrigation or releasing it in other ways back to nature. The natural process doesn't begin till after that.