Disposable diapers are one of the biggest sources of pollution and waste on the planet.
We are finally waking up to the destruction that plastics are doing to our environment. But most of us see plastics at a straw or sandwich bag. We are not realising that plastic is in everything, including diapers that are completely non-biodegradable.
Representing a third of all non-biodegradable waste in landfills, disposable diapers need to be at the top of our list of plastic products we need to stop buying. Each baby creates a tonne of non-biodegradable waste in 2 years of disposable diapering.
If you need a few reasons to change to cloth diapers here are some good ones:
They are ending up in the ocean.
Much of the plastic in landfills is carried by wind and rain into our drainage networks and rivers that flow into the ocean.
They contaminate our ground water.
Our landfills currently contain tonnes of untreated human waste, which contaminates ground water and spreads disease.
They waste water.
Even after all the washes your cloth diapers go through, diapering your baby in disposable diapers uses twice as much water in the manufacturing process.
They waste energy.
It takes 3.5 times as much energy to manufacture disposable diapers as it does to manufacture and wash cloth diapers.
They waste resources.
Disposables use 90 times more renewable raw materials like tree pulp and cotton, which means more farming land required and more trees cut down, all of which contribute to habitat loss