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CLOTH OR DISPOSABLE?
1.Since parenthood is more and more common among this readership, let's ask this question:
Is it environmentally better to use cloth diapers or disposable?
ACCORDING to Jim Motavelli, editor of E/ The Environmental Magazine , you should use what works best for you, unless you live in an area where water is scarce. Then, it's best to use disposables. However, it is really not OK to wad them up and throw them into the parking lot at Walgreens as so many slobs do, and if we catch you at it, you will need a cloth to clean yourself up.
2. Is it better to use paper or plastic grocery bags?
ACCORDING to Motavelli, there doesn't seem to be any advantage to the environment from using one or the other, although if you take cloth bags to the store and pack your own groceries, you're a hero. And you won't find peoples' cloth bags hanging from bushes and fences all over the landscape.
2 comments:
The environmental comparisons that I've seen on the diaper debate do not truly compare clothe diapers and disposable diapers. Instead they are comparing using a clothe diapers service to using disposable diapers. There is a third option that never gets discussed, much like the third option of bringing your own clothe bag to the grocery store. Instead of using a diaper service, quality clothe diapers can be bought to be washed at home. We bought diapers from www.motherease.com that can be washed with normal detergent, and hot water; just doing an extra spin and rinse cycle before doing a full wash cycle. The environmental comparisons are assuming the the dirty diepers will be shipped somewhere to be washed 10 times with bleach or other strong chemicals.
-Jason
How do you compare landfill space to energy consumption to water and air pollution in order to determine 'which is better for the environment'? I'm always skeptical of such comparisons. It is, after all, quite possible that energy depletion will kill us before all the landfills fill up.
That said, we mostly use cloth diapers made under the FuzziBunz label. They are excellent, and hold up to many, many wash cycles. Under certain circumstances, we use disposables (when we are away from home, when the cloth diapers are in the wash, etc). It's clear to me that the disposables generate a huge volume of solid waste that I must haul out to the alley. Although we have plenty of water available for use in Minnesota, washing the cloth diapers generates waste in the form of wastewater, which must be partially treated and dumped into the Mississippi River. We wash the diapers in hot water, so there is an energy consumption issue to address, too.
Many items require as much or more energy use in manufacture than they will even use in their lifetimes. Cars and refrigerators fall into this category. I am not sure if the washing of cloth diapers in hot water consumes as much energy as the manufacture and disposal of disposable diapers.
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