Plastic-Free Diapers – Change Them, Donate Them
Since I’m not a mom myself, I rely on the wisdom of other parents who are working to reduce plastic in their families’ lives. Cloth diapering is one way to cut down on the amount of plastic contacting your baby’s skin and ending up in landfills or incinerators. Here are a couple of guest posts: one is about a cloth diaper event coming up this month, and the other is about a project to donate cloth diapers to families in need.
The Great Cloth Diaper Change
by Janice Roodsari of Momma Words
Have you heard about the Great Cloth Diaper Change? All around the world people are learning about how using simple, reusable, cloth diapers can make a BIG impact on a family’s finances, environmental waste and pollution, as well as the health of your baby. To help spread the word about the benefits of cloth diapering, an event called The Great Cloth Diaper Change was dreamed up and the Real Diaper Association turned this dream into a reality.
The Great Cloth Diaper Change is an annual event (in its third year) where parents and caregivers gather with their babies to change a diaper in an attempt to set a world record for the most cloth diapers changed in one day. You don’t even need to be a cloth diaper user to participate because most sites will let you borrow a cloth diaper for the event (and once you try it, you might find it’s easier than you think!)
All around the world local hosts set up a location for “the change”. Some locations will be intimate, smaller gatherings, and some events are so large that they need multiple venues to contain their hundreds of participants! Many locations, like my Ventura, CA location, take this opportunity to invite relevant people and businesses from their community to make this event a baby/parenting fair where parents can learn about businesses and services that will benefit them. All events focus on cloth diapering advocacy and education. We also collect donations for the Real Diaper Association so that they can continue in their efforts to advocate and support local advocates in cloth diapering. Last year there were 8,251 qualifying participants!
If you are a parent of a child in diapers, are expecting your first child or are a business that supports natural minded parenting, I encourage you to visit GreatClothDiaperChange.com and search their map to find a location near you! Your local host would love to have business sponsors and as many participants as possible!
Save the date on Saturday, April 20th, 2013 for the Great Cloth Diaper Change and meet your local cloth diapering resources and community. Talk to cloth diapering families and see how much money they have saved. Ask about laundry, leaks, poop and blowouts. I think you might be surprised at how doable it is to use cloth diapers. I cloth diapered twins! P.S. What’s a blowout? (Cloth diapering parents might not even know what a blowout is!)
Share The Love
by Toni Keltner of Toni the Chic Momma
I first began cloth diapering back in 2011 after meeting Jennifer Labit the owner and CEO of Cotton Babies and creator of bumGenius, Flip and Econobum cloth diapers. I had been curious about cloth diapers and Jennifer graciously gave me my cloth diaper start by personally sending me some bumGenius cloth diapers. She introduced me to the world of fluff and I have been cloth diapering full-time ever since. When I first heard about the Share The Love program, I knew I just had to be involved. Jennifer Labit was such a blessing to my family and I wanted to help pay it forward.
I am so frustrated by my daughter’s insistence on using plastic diapers (nappies) and not even eco-friendlier ones. I used cloth nappies for each of my three children in the ’70’s. It is 21C western societies who are creating this problem for the planet.
HelenWeder I understand your frustration. Our current society is so different than it was in the 70’s. The Internet revolution has made us expect instant gratification when it comes to information and with it, we have become a lot busier and a much more multitasking society. With this new Internet age and the copious amount of information it affords us, I hope we use it to find better ways of being kinder to the environment and develop better alternatives such as non disposable plastic diapers.
I use cloth diapers for my 10 month old and have from day one. They are the better way to go for many reasons (http://akintogreen.com/blog/2013/02/20/just-another-poopie-diaper-cloth-versus-disposable-diapers). I live in a condo and use coined washer/dryer machines, too. Yet, I still save money! I sometimes have to hand-wash or soak the diapers prior to washing to avoid spending too much money on washing, but this takes very little time. The initial cost of buying cloth diapers can also be offset by buying used diapers that are often sold on craigslist and other sites. If you have a tight budget cloth diapers are far more economical than you may think even for the initial cost. You can get a dozen prefold diapers for $30 + a wool diaper cover for $30 (www.greenmountaindiapers.com). We definitely need to debunk many myths about cloth diapers out there.
I am from India. When I was growing up, I never seen any stroe bought plastic diapers. Everybody used cloth diapers. They washed it and used it again and again. Children are potty trained quite early. All they do is make ‘shooooh’ sound and child will pee. Try it. Even the poop time is mostly fixed. For new borns they spread rubber sheet under the small piece of cotton cloth. These cotton cloths are made out old cotton soft bedsheets and old cotton sarees taken from grandmoms When the child grow little bigger, then they wash the diapers, dry them always in direct sun and kept it neatly so that it can be used by another small child. Moment the lady is pregnant, they start enquiring with other families whose kids have grown out of diapers,for the the old diapers. To be Moms collect diapers and other clothes from others. New born are not supposed to use anything new store bought items. If anybody wants to learn how to sew cloth diapers, I can help and volunteer to stich for those who who are willing to use them. They are super easy. You can contact me. i live in Naperville
Thank you.
We used cloth diapers mostly, with disposable for long trips. My 2nd finished in disposables though because of a move and a new laundry situation. One obstacle to cloth for low income families is cost of diapers, but another is cost of coin-op laundry and the challenge getting public, shared machine to wash the way that is best for diapers.