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Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Tuesday: The Second Day of the RDW

Tuesday is Real Simple Real Diaper Waste Reduction Day.  Here is what the RDA says about this day:

Tuesday: Real Simple Real Diaper Waste Reduction

Advocacy Recommendations
●     Ask an environmental group, municipal waste division, or government representative to support cloth diapers.
Education Focus
●     Environmental benefits of cloth diapers http://whatawaste.info/but-i-heard/ orhttp://www.realdiaperassociation.org/diaperfacts.php

So, today I am going to talk about Environmental benefits of cloth diapers.  Did you know that disposable diapers are estimated to take 250-500 YEARS to break down just one!?!?  By the way, this is just an estimate, not an actual number seeing that disposable diapers have only been around for about 40 years.  So that means the diapers thrown away 40 years ago are still sitting there...EW, GROSS!!!!  I am glad I am not adding my kids "matters" to that mess!!!

So, if you do just a little bit of math, we can find out how many disposable diapers an average family would throw away.  Kids are usually changed every 2-3 hours.  There are 24 hours in a day, however the babies usually sleep about 8 hours where they are not changed at all.  So, subtract 8 from 24 and you get 16.  Divide that by 2 and you get 8.  So that is approximately 8 diapers a day (not counting random changes because your baby decided to go RIGHT after you changed him/her...so this is kind of a low ball for early kids).  Anyways, there are 365 days in a year.  So if you multiply 8 by 365 you get 2,920.  So that is approximately how many diapers you would use in a year.  The average age of being potty trained is about 2 1/2.  SO, that means that you would use 7,300 diapers on one child.

WAIT, WHAT.....approximately 7,300 diapers per child!  OMG...that is nuts!!!  And all that, sitting...in a landfill...not biodegrading....EW!

So, this about that if you decide to pull for a disposable diaper...I know that will always be in the back of my mind!

6 comments:

  1. I did not start cloth diapering for the environmental benefits, but it's definitely a plus that I'm not throwing away all those disposable diapers.

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  2. I use cloth for financial benefits but I am pleased that it is also keeping thousands of diapers out of our landfills. So gross that all that gel and feces is sitting in our landfills.

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  3. I am with these ladies! We started CDing to save money. I learned about all the environmental pluses later on down the line. I also learned about all the negatives on disposables and don't think I could ever use them full time again. I will definitely be looking for the more eco-friendly ones when I need them.

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  4. Cindy B (on rc/fb) Thanks for the info ~ we did cloth diapering for the environment, to save money, and to keep the chemicals off our lil guy.

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  5. Absolutely! When you think about it, do we really want to leave a planet covered in dirty diapers to our children? That plus the cost savings and the health benefits sealed the deal for us.

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  6. We actually did begin using cloth for the environmental benefits. The savings is a bonus. I think it is so important to teach our children how to reduce the waste as much as possible

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