Diaper Facts
History | Easy for you | Better for your baby | Best for the planet
There are sound arguments on both sides of the disposable vs cotton diaper debate and it takes a lot of motivation to make sense of it all and validate the sources of the information.
There is a lot of information about diapering options. So much that it can be overwhelming. This is by no means a complete analysis of the facts, but it is a good place to get started. We have done some homework and we hope you can benefit from it in making your own informed decisions.
The History of Diapers
Before disposable diapers, all babies in North America were diapered in cloth. It was during World War II that the diaper service was introduced to deliver fresh, clean diapers to working mothers. Proctor and Gamble introduced the disposable diaper in 1961 with the launch of Pampers. Kimberly Clark later became the second largest disposable diaper manufacturer with the Huggies brand. Disposable diapers were absorbent and easy to use, and the marketing budgets were enormous.
In the early 90's, the disposable diaper manufacturers released the first in a series of studies to show that cloth diapering uses up another resource: water. The studies argued that the benefit of using cloth in a home setting is negated by the consumption of electricity and water necessary to launder the cloth diapers.
Water is a consideration, but the large scale of industrial laundering makes the water and electricity consumption efficient while ensuring proper grey water treatment.
Within 10 years of the arrival of disposable diapers, the number of cloth diaper users quickly dwindled1. In the 80's, with hundreds of news stories on environmental concern, and numerous studies, there was once again a growing demand for reusable cotton diapers, and usage peaked by Earth Day 1990.
Proctor and Gamble fought back in the early 90's, with hundreds of millions of dollars of lobbying and advertising to consumers. Consequently, the cloth diaper industry suffered once again.
In the last few years, however, as people become more aware of their individual impact on the environment, there has been a trend reversal and reusable diaper use is once again on the rise.
For these reasons, and given the following elements, BabyAuric offers a customer-focused and efficiently run cotton diaper service in Montreal.
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Easy For You
- No rinsing
- No soaking
- No flushing
- No store runs for diaper purchases
- More time for baby and family
In a word, convenience. BabyAuric Diaper Service uses top-quality diapers, which provide ample absorption and ensure baby's comfort. All necessary accessories, such as a deodorised diaper pail and fitted velcro diaper covers are provided. Soiled diapers are simply dumped in the pail, and every week the bag of soiled diapers is replaced with a bag of clean ones.
Easy as a,b,c...done. Click here to see how easy it is.
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Better for Your Baby
Less Diaper Rash:
Cotton is soft on baby's sensitive skin, and is breathable. This ventilation helps evaporate the potentially irritating ammonia that starts to form as soon as a baby wets and the result is far fewer cases of diaper rash for cotton-diapered babies.
- Less Diaper Rash
- No Harsh Chemicals
- Lower Scrotal Temperatures
- Faster Potty Training
Harsh Chemicals in Disposables:
It is important to note that most disposable diapers contain toxic chemicals such as sodium polyacrylate and dioxin. Sodium polyacrylate, used to create maximum absorbency, is the same substance that was withdrawn from tampons many years ago because of an association with Toxic Shock Syndrome2 . Dioxin has been shown to cause cancer, birth defects, liver damage, and skin diseases3 . In a typical disposable diaper these chemicals are kept away from baby's skin, but the fact remains that they are harmful chemicals.
Higher Scrotal Temperatures With Disposables:
Furthermore, studies have shown that scrotal temperature, which closely reflects testicular temperature, is increased in boys wearing single-use plastic-lined diapers; increased scrotal temperature may lead to male infertility4,5.
Faster Potty Training With Cotton:
Another benefit to cloth diapers is that it has been shown that babies diapered with cloth generally toilet train a year earlier than babies diapered with single-use diapers6 ,7.
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Best for Your Planet
Fast Facts
- Globally, an estimated 18 billion single-use diapers are thrown in landfills each year
- Disposables take as many as 500 years to decompose, and commonly contain raw, untreated sewage
- Disposable diapers make up the third largest source of solid waste in landfills, after newspapers and food and beverage containers
- The average baby goes through 5,000 diapers, which generates one ton of waste
- Single-use diapers have also been shown to consume greater quantities of energy and raw materials, and to generate more potentially toxic pollutants on a per-diaper-change basis
There are many studies and debates surrounding reusable versus disposable diapers. While disposable diapers have made some progress in recent years to become less damaging to the environment, they still represent a burden to municipal landfills and continue to deplete natural resources; over 4 million disposable diapers are discarded in Canada per day
8.
In contrast, the average cloth diaper is used between 100 and 150 times as a diaper, and then retired. Retired cloth diapers are in high demand and have a second lifecycle wherever soft, lint-free rags are needed.
Furthermore, washing cloth diapers at home uses 50 to 70 gallons of water every three days - about the same as a toilet-trained child or adult flushing the toilet five to six times a day. Our service puts the diapers through an average of 13 water changes, but because of the economies of scale, uses less water and energy per diaper than one laundry load at home9. The waste water produced from washing our diapers is benign since we use a chlorine neutraliser, while the waste water from the manufacture of the pulp, paper, and plastics used in disposable diapers contains dioxins, solvents, sludge, and heavy metals.
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