Cloth diapers versus disposable diapers: The scoop on the poop

I wanted to give my readers a solid answer to the question, “Which is better, cloth diapers or disposables?” Alas, after much research, I'm sorry to say, there is none. Like this presidential election, one choice does not outshine the other. Rather, you have to pick the lesser of the two evils: Do you want to use enough water to fill two Olympic size swimming pools or send nearly 5,000 diapers per child into the landfill? Tough decision, but some facts with a wee bit (see what I did there?) of experience might help steer deciding parents into the path that is right for them. When deciding which type of diaper to use, four factors usually come into play: environmental impact, health, personal effort, and cost. 

Environmental impact: Most people have the cloth versus disposable debate for ecological reasons, so let’s tackle that first. According to National Geographic’s Human Footprint project, it takes 715 pounds of plastics and 5.65 barrels of crude oil, and four trees to make one human’s lifetime supply of diapers (thanks, Saudi Arabia!). According to “The Poop on Eco-Friendly Diapers,” published by Wired, disposable diapers make up 3.4 tons of waste, or 2.1% of U.S. garbage. And they don’t biodegrade—at least very well, not even natural disposables. According to the Real Diaper Industry Association (yes, it really is a thing), it can take up to 500 years for a disposable diaper to decompose.

Conventional disposable diapers are bleached with chlorine, and I don’t need to be a scientist to tell you that chlorine isn’t the friendliest of chemicals. In addition, dioxins, heavy metals, and solvents used in the manufacturing process can and do harm the environment. But cloth diapers aren’t innocent either. Farmers use pesticides and herbicides when growing the cotton to make the diapers (organic cotton use less), which can seep into water supplies. Because disposables are made with tree pulp—well, I don’t know if anyone uses pesticides or herbicides on trees, but I have my doubts.

Cloth diapers will eventually sit in a landfill, but they have a much longer usable life. As my husband’s aunt told me, she just threw away her last cloth diaper—since her daughters outgrew them 20 some-odd years ago, she’s been using them as cleaning rags. They can also be sanitized and passed to another family or to the next child to use.

Speaking of landfills, when you use disposable diapers, the poo and the pee goes into the landfill with the diaper. When you use cloth, the poo and pee end up in the sewer system, where they belong.

Now, for the water issue. Cloth diapers require lots of laundry water. According to National Geographic’s Human Footprint (documentary), it takes 22,455 gallons of water to launder all of the cloth diapers one human will need in a lifetime. For Kevin McCluney, a dad in Arizona, adding to the landfill was a lesser evil than taxing already low water supplies in the desert. “It costs energy to get the water to us. It has to be pumped uphill from the Colorado River,” he says. The desert is not the place to be doing an extra three to four loads of laundry a week. For McCullough’s now 11-month-old son, Huggies Pure & Natural was the compromise between natural cloth diapers and conventional disposables.

I delved back into my old water bills to see how much water we use now compared to before we had the baby. Between 2010 and 2011, we averaged 4,300 cubic feet of water (about 32,000 gallons). In 2012, with a full-cloth diapering regimen, we used 6,400 cubic feet (48,000 gallons), causing our water bill to increase by $70 per year. Keep in mind, however, that this increase in water usage is affected by more general laundry and nightly baths for the wee one (OMG, I did it again!).

McCluney also brought up another great point: the energy used to power your washer and dryer comes from different sources depending on your region. Some areas of the country rely more on coal, while others on nuclear or wind power, so part of what you save in landfill waste may go up in smoke, literally. With the help of my husband, I did more math: pre-baby, we averaged 873 kilowatt hours per month. Post-baby, we averaged 1,095 kilowatt hours per month (also considering that we have one more room to air condition during the summer). I don’t know where our energy comes from (but I should).

If, however, you subscribe to a cloth diaper laundry service, you gain economies of scale. Although these services can add to the cost of cloth diapering ($20-$25/week), they can wash, sanitize, and dry the diapers more economically because they have industrial equipment and larger loads. When you add the additional charges to your water and electricity bills, a laundry service might be worth it.

And in case you thought the discussion was over, here's another point to consider: Trucks have to deliver diapers to stores. There are a hell of a lot more trucks delivering a hell of a lot more disposable diapers out there than there are delivering cloth diapers, so you also have to worry about emissions. Oh, the things you learn when you start reading about life cycle analysis.

Health: Another concern when using disposables is the use of sodium polyacrylate (SAP), which is the absorbent material inside of disposable diapers. Click here to see a cool video about how nappies are made and SAP’s role in leak prevention. According to Wired, back in the day, sodium polyacrylate was linked to toxic shock syndrome when used in tampons, but there is little evidence that it causes harm when it is used outside of the body, such as in diapers or sanitary napkins. The chemicals used in disposable diapers have also been linked to asthma. In addition to the chemicals, disposables may present another problem for boys by increasing scrotal temperatures, possibly leading to lower sperm count in adulthood. The little swimmers need to keep cool.

Personal effort: From a practical standpoint, cloth diapers are more work. I won’t lie. It’s not significantly more work, but it might be enough to push a fence sitter in the direction of disposable diapers. The cloth diapers available today are not the kind your mom used--they're much easier to use, so get the picture of pins and rubber pants out of your head. But they do require attention. I’ve more than once gotten out of bed a night because I forgot to put the diapers in the dryer during waking hours. We went on vacation this summer, and I broke down and used disposables the entire time because I couldn’t drag a week’s load of pee around. It was so easy, but not easy enough to make me switch after making the investment in cloth.

Cost: Consumer Reports says that the cost of using disposable diapers is about $2,500 from birth to potty training. I have spent about $700 on cloth diapers, accessories, and detergent (keeping in mind that I use several different kinds of cloth diapers—some economical, some more expensive). When you consider that after the initial investment in cloth, mom and dad don't have to dish out any more money for diapers for subsequent children, the savings really add up (although the energy, water, and detergent costs remain).

Below is my not-terribly-scientific chart comparing cloth to disposable diapers. 

	Cloth	Disposable
Chemicals to manufacture	Pesticides and herbicides used to grow the cotton (organic cotton uses less), some bleach may be used depending on manufacturer	SAP, dioxins, heavy metals, and solvents, chlorine
Biodegradability	Not sure how many years, but there are a lot fewer of them to worry about	500 years
Energy/water to launder	22,455 gallons (lifetime)	n/a
Landfill waste (including plastic packaging)	48 diapers (that’s how many are in my cabinet) per however many children you have	5,000 diapers per child
Cost	$500-$700 total	$2,500 per child

 
For me, cloth diapering is the lesser of the two evils. Yes, I use a ton of water, but I'm not in the desert, and I use biodegradable, eco-friendly detergent and hang dry when time allows. But each family must make its own decisions and weigh the pros and cons of both options.