The icky sticky facts about paper.

The people asked and now they shall receive! Here is a snippet from my workshop on paper diapers and their harmful affects.

Let’s look at some facts and figures about the paper alternative.
-In 1988 nearly $300 million dollars was spent annually just to DISCARD disposable diapers. Cloth diapers can be used 50-200 times before being turned into rags!

-Disposable diapers generate 60x more solid waste and use 20x more raw materials such as crude oil and wood pulp.

-The manufacture and use of disposable diapers amounts to 2.3x more water use than cloth.

-Over 300 lbs. of wood, 50 lbs. of petroleum feed stocks and 20 lbs of chlorine are used to produce disposable diapers for one baby EACH YEAR!

-Disposable diapers are the third largest single consumer item in landfills, and represent about 4% of solid waste. In a house with a child in diapers, disposables make up around 50% of the houses waste.

-In May 2000 archives of childhood disease published research showing that scrotal temperature is increased in boys wearing disposable diapers. Prolonged exposure will blunt or completely abolish the physiological testicular cooling mechanism important for normal sperm generation.

-Disposable diapers take around 500 yrs to decompose. All the while leaching harmful chemicals back into our planet!

-These are the same chemicals that are so harmful to our little ones!

Such As:

Dioxin- this is used in the paper bleaching process. This is a KNOWN carcinogenic chemical, listed by the EPA as the most toxic of all cancer linked chemicals, banned in most countries!
Most feminine products also contain this chemical.
If you are interested in an alternative please contact me for more info!

Tributyl-tin(TBT)- a toxic pollutant KNOWN to cause hormonal problems in humans and animals!

Sodium polyacrylate- is a type of SAP or super absorbent polymer, a similar substance was taken out of tampons in 1980 when it was linked to TSS.


Now Let’s take a look at Economics:
*These figures are based on averages out of San Francisco California a few years back.

Disposable:
-Each baby will use around 6,000 diapers in the first two years.

-This is around 60 diapers a week @ 23 cents per store brand diaper, 28 cents for name brand. This brings us to a 25.5 cent average.

-Based on these numbers we are looking at about $1600 to diaper for two years, or about $66 a month.

Cloth:
-Each family will more than likely need around 6 dozen diapers.

- This is 3 dozen each in two different sizes. This should last two children up to two years!

-This set up can be as low as $300 to as much as $1000 depending on what type of system you purchase, if you make your own, and what materials you use.

-The cheapest diaper I have made cost us about .10 cents. We upcycled some old T-shirts!

-So, you can save as much as 1/10 of the cost of disposables, even more if you use found objects like t-shirts or towels!