Diapers Essay

366 Words2 Pages
The debate between which type of diaper is best is not an easy question to answer. The reusable cloth diaper isn’t what it used to be. Some cloth diapers now have double or triple layers and a multiply, fiber-filled strip, making them more absorbent than older styles. Some styles of cloth diapers now come with Velcro strips, eliminating the need for those large safety pins. With so many different choices, here are some things to take into consideration; convenience, cost and environmental impact. Disposable diapers win the convenience battle hands down. Disposable pails like diaper genie make it easy to trash dirty diapers without stinking up the house. For parents who use cloth diapers, there are now service providers who haul away dirty diapers, launder them and deliver fresh ones every week. This has eliminated a lot of the hassle associated with cloth diapers, making them almost as convenient as disposable ones. Over the diapering lifetime of a baby, there will not be any big difference in the costs whether you use cloth diapers or disposable. Either way you will end up spending roughly about $2,000. Disposable diapers cost anywhere between 30 and 35 cents per diaper. Cloth diapering services cost about $75 per week. Disposable diapers end up in landfills, where they will take hundreds of years to decompose. A baby goes through over 5,000 diapers, which means about 1 ton of non-biodegradable waste. This clearly has a huge environmental impact. However, cloth diapers also have an adverse impact on the environment because a lot of water is used in washing them. But more importantly, energy is consumed in washing and drying them. Parents using cloth diapers can minimize their environmental impact if they wash several diapers together, and if they dry them in the sun instead of a machine. The choice between the different types of diapers available is a matter of

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