From: bwolfe@trentu.ca (BEN WOLFE)
Subject: Re: Diapers and the Environment
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: Trent University Computer Services Department
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 06:02:00 GMT

Paula Burch writes:
|> If what you care about is really the environment, why are you wasting
|> time on lecturing about baby diapers? They are minimal in their effects
|> in filling up landfills, etc., compared to newspapers.

|> What about women's absorbant menstrual products? They're in use only a
|> fifth of the month, on average, but they're used for 10 times as many
|> years.

|> Or teach strangers how to compost their grass clippings--also far more
|> significant in the landfills.

Hmmm. I hadn't realized there was a rule here that only allows me to
think about one issue at a time. Actually, you're dead right about the
importance of all three issues. That's why:

1. Every city in Ontario has had curbside newspaper collection (along
with bottles, cans and various other materials) for several years. The
participation rate in Peterborough, where I live, is well over 90%, and
few newspapers now find their way to landfills. I forget that other
places may not have come this far.

2. I work for a community environmental project that, in fact, does
educate strangers about the benefits of "grasscycling" and backyard
composting, along with about 25 other seemingly insignificant household
environmental actions that in fact add up to an enormous economic and
environmental benefit to the community and the planet when thousands of
people carry them out simultaneously.

(As a male, I'll stay away from the issue of menstrual pads, but I hope
others will take the opport8unity to respond to this one.)

The accepted figure for the percentage of diapers in the solid waste
stream is 2%. That's the highest rate for any single consumer product
apart from newspapers and beverage containers, which could and should be
recycled. Two percent may not seem like much ... until you take a minute
to look at the waste stream. Paula, are you or anyone out there really
saying that 20 billion soiled disposable diapers a year is not a
"significant" garbage problem? Or that it's not something we should worry
about until all larger problems have been solved?

The message behind the project I work for is that our largest environmental
problems are the result of the choices we make as individuals -- with what
we choose to buy being near the top of the list. Our shopping list included
a few dozen cloth diapers and a reliable washing machine rather than
5,000 to 7,000 disposables.  It's a choice that I'll stand by. One of
every 25 people in North America is a baby in diapers. Divide the
population of your community by 25 and then multiply by the number of
diaper changes in a day. Now multiply that by 365 days in a year. In my
community of 65,000 it comes to more than six and a half MILLION little
bundles of joy a year, all destined for a landfill that is on the verge
of closing. Siting the replacement has cost millions and taken close to
a decade, with no end yet in sight.

I firmly believe that every parent has the right and the obligation to
make his or her own responsible choices. But as misc.kidders are fond
of reminding each other, choice depends on accurate information. There
are some very large corporate interests out there that are in the
business of using misinformation to shore up billions of dollars worth
of sales of damaging products.

Ben Wolfe
(4 years into the cloth diaper experience; 1 or so left to go -- though
my wife likes to talk about having more kids :)  )

Xref: sparky misc.kids:28202 sci.med:20782