Diapers and the Enviroment

[BabyDemon]

This is a question for those of us who wear for fun instead of need.

Do you ever get that feeling of "Wow what am I doing to the enviroment" when you throw out a diaper? I sometimes stop and think and there would be less diapers in the land fill if I didn't wear for fun. Its kind of a sad thought. I'm curious if other people have it.

 

[Wegs]

The way I see it, is the diapers were already made, and would be used by someone else, to end up in the landfill anyway. I'm just doing it instead of them.

 

[PostTenebrasLux]

Yeah, I do have that reaction. And Wegs, your purchase influences further production and use, even if in a very small way. From that perspective, you pretty much don't have to throw them out--you've already contributed to the problem. (I'm guilty of that too...)

Well, there's always cloth. Then there are the arguments about water use...there's no winning... I try to be 'green' in other ways, including recycling and conservation. I don't use much electricity or gas, and I like to rely upon my own mobility (as a human) as much as possible.

 

[Pojo]

Nope, never. I don't have much of a conscience, and although I do have a lot of random thoughts, that's one thing I have yet to think about.

 

[Siddy]

Nope never really came to mind, until now....... probably will forget about by the time i wake up in the morning.

 

[Dave]

Seriously if you look at it that way every single thing we do is bad for the environment, yeah it is good to cut back on a lot of the wasteful things we do but seriously do what you can and it's good that you think about it but if you are conscious about your impact and lessen it in other areas then you are doing more than most people.

 

[diaperedteenager]

Hmm...nope, never. And you know what? just b/c of this post I am ging to turn on all the lights in my house and throw away all of my plastic bottles!!! lol just kidding

 

[Eulogy]

Eh, it's a damn shame, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to how much environmental damage is caused by driving a car to the store...

 

[EmeraldsAndLime]

You're harming the environment, maaaaan. Go all natural like us, maaaaan. We just go in the bushes, maaaaan.

 

[Valentine]

I'm storing carbon.

 

[ZombifiedKitty]

Eh some day people are going to dig up landfills after some new recycling process comes into play, lots of metal and plastic that can be dug up. Melted down, depolymerized, refried, you name it. Besides I've switched to cloth as of lately primarily because I won't run out of diapers and the cost is minimized. But I still use normal baby wipes, lets face it smells link to memory.

 

[Jeremiah]

I do what I can for the environment within reason. My home is ultra-efficient and uses less energy than is available at a household dryer outlet. My truck (1988 F-350) gets 12mpg, but is more fuel-efficient than a new 1-ton truck. By keeping what I have, I am not burdening the environment with production of a new truck. The impact from producing what I drive occurred while I was in elementary school.

The diapers are not a concern since their impact is negligible and their use is minimized to the lowest level possible. To reduce my diaper use impact upon the environment, additional expenditures and sacrifices that I am unwilling to make would be required.

Do what you can, and don't worry about what you cannot do for the environment.

 

[harris]

Just think. Diapers are made out of plastic, which takes thousands of years to break down, if it does at all. And the plastic grocery bags that people put dog poop in go in the landfills too. Oneday after our civilization has disappeared, some archealogists (human or otherwise, maybe) will dig up a landfill and find nothing but diapers and plastic bags and the remains of our waste. Can you imagine the theories they'll come up with to explain why we apparently preserved our shit?

If it concerns you, switch to cloth or at least partially to cloth. Especially if you don't mess, cloth isn't that much of hassle to wash, and the water you use to wash them will get cleaned and recycled. The only wasted resources are the energy used in washing and recycling the water, but that is nothing compared to the energy that goes into manufacturing disposables and then disposing of them. Not to mention the space that accumulated garbage takes up, the chemical waste leftover from the manufacturing and the physical resources that go into them.

 

[kevindhca]

Yes, I do think about the impact on the environment, and possible solutions.
I try and live my life as environment friendly as possible to midicate the impact of the diapers that I use.
I need a truck for my farm and work, but I got the most fuel effecient truck available, Ford Ranger.
I also grow most of my own food, totally minimizing the amount of fossil fuels needed to transport food to my plate.
I heat my house with wood, no warmer than 19 Celius, some pollution is caused by the operation of the chain saw, but the burning of the wood itself is carbon neutral and the wood comes from my own wood lot that I grow.

We really need diaper recycling programs.
Not just for adult products, all childrens, and womens products too.
If all sanitary products were recycled, the environment impact would be greatly reduced.
We possess the technology to make it happen easily, we just need the will to make it happen.
All the plastic can be recovered and recycled, and the pulp can be composted into fantastic gardening soil.

 

[Dark Bringer]

Haven't disposable diapers become more eco friendly in recent years?

 

[Poohbearboy]

Use dispopable diaper are bad for the Enviroment but than people say the washing the all them clothes diaper is too becuase amount of energy and water take clean them and cheminal use to clean them going in to swen everytime.

Thing this way factory or car put more pollution on earth than throwing a diaper away.

 

[Diapered Rabbit]

Diapers and the Enviroment

:bunny: Another "green" enterprise/invention I have been working on. Qualifies for an Obama tax credit. ADISC INDUSTRIES PRESENTS:

I'm building deck material that the wealthy can purchase for their homes from the plastic I recycle from the diapers I use. I call them Gerber Plastic Planks Copyright ADISC IND. 2009.

Is the resulting deck material strong enough for the weight of a human?

Depends!

As you probably know by now: this reply is a load of crap. Sorry about the plastic and all but.... your generation will be golfing above my land-filled diapers.:bunny:


P.S. Oh, By the way environment is spelled with n. Please use spell-check.

 

[Fire2box]

Haven't disposable diapers become more eco friendly in recent years?

Not at all. The baby diapers still have the plastic, it's just hidden under the cloth coating.


Anyways I don't really worry about it at all. I assume driving/riding in a car is far worse.

 

[Notsorandom]

This is a question for those of us who wear for fun instead of need.

Do you ever get that feeling of "Wow what am I doing to the enviroment" when you throw out a diaper? I sometimes stop and think and there would be less diapers in the land fill if I didn't wear for fun. Its kind of a sad thought. I'm curious if other people have it.

Yes.

I bought a cloth diaper so that I don't use up so many. Problem mostly fixed, except for when I use other people's stashes.

As for the "oh noes but cloth uses up water" eh....yessss....but so did making that disposable diaper. And it also used up oil to make it. And more oil to ship it. Then you used up oil in the plastic bag you used to seal it up so it wouldn't stink your garbage. And then your garbage was either collected or driven by you to a dump, more oil. And then it was thrown in a landfill, where in all likelyhood, it will last longer than any modern religion has (we're talking a good hundreds of years for it to break down in the open environment, the current best estimate for how long it will take in a landfill is...never). So comparing the amount of pollution, oil used, and energy wasted for one disposable vs timing your wearing right and throwing in a cloth diaper with your cold wash and some soap...no contest, sorry. And depending on your lifestyle choices with laundry and how you get your home's power...well, the overall affect will be:

Cloth: onetime use of energy and water to make it, oil to ship it to you. Regular use of energy and water to wash it. Lasts several years, biodegrades eventually if made from natural fibers.

Disposable: Energy and water to make it, oil to ship it, oil to seal it, oil to trash it, lasts forever, one time use.

Pretty cut and dry to me, you're not going to use up nearly as much energy just by washing something hundreds of times before throwing it away as you would by constantly making something new and then instantly throwing it out. As for if you use energy with warm water to wash....uh, yeah. I don't worry about that problem. I worry about my water storage tank bursting from steam in the summer when my water comes close to BOILING, thanks to having a solar thermal setup. It's currently holding 360 gallons of water it heated up to 160 degrees F today, and it didn't get any warmer than 42F outside. Go on, whine some more about how useless it is to do some small action that's better for the environment, because it still uses up energy. It's not like doing many small actions that were bad for the environment had no effect on the environment at all, right?

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-oceans-series,0,7842752.special
Go read that, especially the part on plastic. Then come back and spout out how since you do things like drive a car, changing something more minor than the car is pointless. Fuckers.

 

[CrazyCanuck]

This is why I'm slowly making the switch to cloth. Costs more up front per diaper, but saves money in the long run :smile:

Kevin