Go Green With Cloth Diapers

Video Transcript

"Did you know that approximately 18 billion disposable diapers are sent to the landfill each year? And about five.... it takes about five hundred years for them to decompose, if at all. Hi, my name is Erin Shepherd with Austin Baby, and I'm going to talk about how you can help the environment by using cloth diapers. There are several factors to consider when looking at the environmental impact of disposables and cloth diapers. One of...one of which is the manufacturing. As you know, a disposable is a single use product, so every single diaper that is used is manufactured, where a cloth diaper is manufactured only once. It's used over many years, and after it's not being used as a diaper anymore, it can be refurbished and used as a diaper again, or it can be...end up very proudly as a household rag or a garage shop rag. So very little energy is used over that lifetime of the diaper, in comparison to the disposables. And as far as the transportation, again, because the disposable is a single use product, every single diaper is transported, and that happens on a daily basis, of course, across many, many miles. First to the distribution center, and then to the supermarket. And then also, consider any midnight runs or extra stops when you're purchasing only diapers, which would not happen with a cloth diaper. If you're running low on cloth diapers, you simply do a load of laundry. At the end of the life of a disposable, it goes to the landfill, where, if it were given a proper organic environment, it could decompose in around five hundred years. However, given most landfill situations, it's quite possible that it does not decompose at all. And, as I mentioned, with the cloth diaper, at the end of it's life, it still lives on, takes the form of other things, such as household rags. Not only do the reusing of the energy involved with cloth diapers make a big difference, but also the health. When you send a disposable to a landfill, the proper way to dispose of any fecal matter is to empty it into the toilet. However, over ninety-two percent of households do not do that. That means that fecal matter is going straight into the landfill. With a cloth diaper, you simply shake the diaper over the toilet,it falls off, you flush....and there are some handy gadgets and accessories you can find to make that even easier. And, so a lot less fecal matter is floating around in our environment because of the cloth diapers. They go through a sanitary system where they're properly treated. So, with cloth diapers, not only can you help the environment with energy and resources, you're also modeling to be a socially responsible person to the little one who's wearing the diapers. Thanks. I'm Erin Shepherd with Austin Baby."