Raphael, a listener from Westport, wrote for my opinion on the correct environmental choice for diapering his baby who's due next month. He and his wife want to raise what he referred to as a low-impact child. What a perfect question for Earth Day!

My quick answer is cloth diapers. They worked for us over 50 years ago, and for our children Kira and Dan several decades ago, and they still make the most sense today.

But since it's been a while, and we don't have any grandchildren yet, to get some current information, I checked with Debra whose son Nate is seven months old. She and Oliver were the only ones in their birth class who planned to use cloth diapers. They live in New Haven where there's a diaper service nearby. Debra told me about diaper wraps which replace both the diaper pins and the plastic pants that we used. They have seven or so of these wraps which they rinse out and dry to use again. She also recommended using wet washcloths instead of those scented, disposable wipes because they're kinder to baby's skin. Nate gets changed seven to ten times a day and uses between 50 and 70 diapers a week. (When we multiply that number by 52 weeks, and then by 2 to 3 years of diaper-wearing we see that one child can use up to 10,000 diapers. What a pile!)

Debra said that they do use disposable diapers occasionally, overnight or when they're traveling. She heard that cloth diapers use less water to wash than the throw-aways take to manufacture. Over their life cycle, the cloth diapers use less energy. One child's worth of disposables requires twenty trees, that is if they're not made exclusively from polypropylene and polyacrylite, fossil fuel based chemicals. They also produce a ton of solid waste - 90 times more than cloth diapers produce.

So, if Raphael and his wife want to raise a low-impact child who will consume fewer of the Earth's resources and produce less waste, they should definitely use cloth diapers. It's easy to see how one set of reusable cloth diapers consumes fewer resources than buying a big box or plastic bag of plastic diapers once a week. Frequently cloth diapers can still be used as wonderful soft rags long after the baby's been toilet trained.

Of course, exact figures for resource use depend on which assumptions are used. Does the sun or nuclear power heat the wash water and dry the diapers, for example?

Cloth diapers have other, more subtle advantages, too. A baby's messes are cared for by the parents or the service for which they pay. Urine and feces end up in the sewage system designed to handle those wastes. Disposables with their baby poops, end up in the solid waste stream and we all pay for their burning or burying. We'll likely pay again when the greenhouse gases (produced by burning all that plastic and those urine-soaked liners) heat up the planet even more.

Diaper services are largely local businesses. Disposable manufacturing isn't. It is possible to grow cotton, as well as spin, weave, wash and dry it in an ecological manner. It probably isn't possible to do the same with the oil wells, power plants, chemical factories and large corporations which are all necessary to make and market disposable diapers.

Each year there are more than 140 million babies born on Earth, with a net population increase of over 90 million - enough additional people to fill 10 more New York Cities, every year! Imagine if each of them uses 20 trees and produces a ton of waste just to satisfy a basic biological need that could also be met with some cloth, hot water and sunshine.

We are using up the Earth's resources at an unsustainable rate. Our consumption doubles every 13 years. The Earth's capacity to absorb our wastes is also being stretched to the limit. The more we reduce the quantity of resources we use and the amount of waste we generate, the more livable the world will be for Raphael's child, for Nate and for all the children.

The throw-away convenience mindset is one of the true enemies of a healthy and sustainable future. Its proponents want to get each new person hooked early. Resist. By using and washing cloth diapers, Raphael and his wife can take an important step toward a healthy future for our children. And so can you.

Happy Earth Day!

This is Bill Duesing, Living on the Earth

This page and its contents are copyright © 1996-1997 by WSHU-FM, Fairfield, CT, and by Bill Duesing.