Turning into Mom and Dad: The Great Cloth Diaper Change!

So, anyone who knows me, knows that my sister, Shannon, and I cloth diaper our girls... and love it. And it's so wonderful to have supportive husbands and families who love it just as much. She has CD'd Emma since birth- she's 15 months now, and I've CD'd JE since 2 months(I used the sposies that were given to me first). Recently, I had the opportunity to be involved in a worldwide event called "The Great Cloth Diaper Change". This is the first year and the response was much, MUCH greater than the creator ever imagined.

You may be wondering: what is the GCDC? Well, It all started with Judy Aagard’s desire to celebrate Earth Day by hosting a family event for the Tiny Tots community and quickly morphed into a dream to set the Guinness World Record for the most cloth diapers changed simultaneously. (Awesome!!!) Shortly thereafter, The Great Cloth Diaper Change 2011 was conceived and organized by a small group of cloth diaper enthusiasts that were eager to show North America that cloth diapers are a real option for today’s families.

The initial plan was to develop an infrastructure for any cloth diapering fan in North America to be able to get involved in, either as a participant or an organizer. Word quickly traveled across the oceans and it was soon evident that cloth diapering has a formidable following not just in North America but around the world. Currently, several countries will be hosting locations to help set the World Record, even though for some it will mean getting up in the middle of the night to do so.

We hope this event brings awareness that the cloth diapering community is much larger than people think, and it’s time that we get noticed.

‎203 hosts reporting 6277 participants so far!
Australia – 3
Brazil – 40
Dominican Republic – 5
Germany – 26
Malaysia – 39
Spain – 17
Switzerland – 13
Canada – 891
United Kingdom – 25
United States – 5218

We had our GCDC at Shelby Farms in Memphis, TN. There were over 150 people there and 65 parent-child participants!! When we first decided we would offer this opportunity, we thought it'd be hard to find 25 people to participate (that's the minimum we had to have) But the response was greater than Rachel, Ashley, Toni and Amanda could have imagined! They made the event unforgettable- they offered a raffle where there were Fuzzibunz diapers, Grovia diapers and wipes, dryer balls, Crunchy Clean laundry sets, Boba carrier, a beautiful painting by a local artist, bib and burp cloth sets, and many MANY more items. It was such a beautiful day, where mommas could visit, picnic, and let their babies play in the beautiful sunshine. Emma changed into a Lemon Zest Applecheeks and Jane Ellis changed into a Zinnia BumGenius.

And now the questions you've been wanting to ask:

Why Cloth Diapers?
Reusable cloth diapers have many benefits, including:

■Environmental: Cloth diapers reduce waste for families with children in diapers by more than 50%.
In 1988, over 18 billion diapers were sold and consumed in the United States that year.4 Based on our calculations (listed below under "Cost: National Costs"), we estimate that 27.4 billion disposable diapers are consumed every year in the U.S.

The instructions on a disposable diaper package advice that all fecal matter should be deposited in the toilet before discarding, yet less than one half of one percent of all waste from single-use diapers goes into the sewage system.

Over 92% of all single-use diapers end up in a landfill.

In 1988, nearly $300 million dollars were spent annually just to discard disposable diapers, whereas cotton diapers are reused 50 to 200 times before being turned into rags.

No one knows how long it takes for a disposable diaper to decompose, but it is estimated to be about 250-500 years, long after your children, grandchildren and great, great, great grandchildren will be gone.

Disposable diapers are the third largest single consumer item in landfills, and represent about 4% of solid waste. In a house with a child in diapers, disposables make up 50% of household waste.

Disposable diapers generate sixty times more solid waste and use twenty times more raw materials, like crude oil and wood pulp.

The manufacture and use of disposable diapers amounts to 2.3 times more water wasted than cloth.

Over 300 pounds of wood, 50 pounds of petroleum feedstocks and 20 pounds of chlorine are used to produce disposable diapers for one baby EACH YEAR.

In 1991, an attempt towards recycling disposable diapers was made in the city of Seattle, involving 800 families, 30 day care centers, a hospital and a Seattle-based recycler for a period of one year. The conclusion made by Procter & Gamble was that recycling disposable diapers was not an economically feasible task on any scale.

■Financial: Cloth diapers allow families to save more than $2000 per child.
We estimate that each baby will need about 6,000 diapers during the first two years of life. The following estimates are based on prices in San Francisco, California.

Disposables. For these calculations, let's assume that a family needs about 60 diapers a week. In the San Francisco Bay area, disposable diapers cost roughly 23¢ per store-brand diaper and 28¢ for name-brand. This averages to 25.5¢ per diaper. Thus the average child will cost about $1,600 to diaper for two years in disposable diapers, or about $66 a month.

Diaper Services. Subscribing to a diaper services costs between $13 and $17 each week depending on how many diapers a family decides to order. Let's assume the family spends roughly $15 a week for 60 diapers a week. This equals $780 annually and averages to $65 a month. Over the course of two years, the family will spend about $1500 per baby, roughly the same cost as disposables, depending on what type of covers are purchased and what type of wipes are used. If one adds in the cost of disposable wipes for either diapering system, the costs increase.

Cloth Diapers. For cloth diapering, each family will probably need about 6 dozen diapers. The cost of cloth diapering can vary considerably, from as low as $300 for a basic set-up of prefolds and covers, to $1000 or more for organic cotton fitted diapers and wool covers. Despite this large price range, it should be possible to buy a generous mix of prefolds and diaper covers for about $300, most of which will probably last for two children. This means the cost of cloth diapering is about one tenth the cost of disposables, and you can spend even less by using found objects (old towels & T-shirts).

National Costs. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were about 19 million children under four in 2000. We could probably assume that there are about 9.5 million children under two and therefore in diapers at any one time. Based on previous studies, we estimate that 5-10% of babies wear cloth diapers at least part time. We will average these figures to 7.5% of babies in cloth diapers and 92.5% in disposables. This means that about 8.8 million babies in the U.S. are using 27.4 billion disposable diapers every year.

Based on these calculations, if we multiply the 8.8 million babies in disposable diapers by an average cost of $800 a year, we find that Americans spend about 7 billion dollars on disposable diapers every year. If every one of those families switched to home-laundered cloth prefold diapers, they would save more than $6 billion, enough to feed about 2.5 million American children for an entire year. Coincidentally, the 2002 U.S. Census reveals that 2.3 million children under 6 live in poverty.

Tax Savings. In some specific circumstances, when cloth diapers have been prescribed for the treatment of a disease, tax savings may be available through the use of flexible spending accounts and medical expense deductions. This could represent a 10% - 35% savings on the cost of diapers depending on the family's tax rate.

■Health: Cloth diapers help parents reduce exposure of their babies’ skin and lungs to the chemicals in disposable diapers. Disposable diapers contain Dioxin, an extremely toxic by-product of the paper-bleaching process. It is a carcinogenic chemical, listed by the EPA as the most toxic of all cancer-linked chemicals. It is banned in most countries, but not the U.S.

Disposable diapers contain Tributyl-tin (TBT) - a toxic pollutant known to cause hormonal problems in humans and animals.

Disposable diapers contain sodium polyacrylate, a type of super absorbent polymer (SAP), which becomes a gel-like substance when wet. A similar substance had been used in super-absorbency tampons until the early 1980s when it was revealed that the material increased the risk of toxic shock syndrome by increasing absorbency and improving the environment for the growth of toxin-producing bacteria.

In May 2000, the Archives of Disease in Childhood published research showing that scrotal temperature is increased in boys wearing disposable diapers, and that prolonged use of disposable diapers will blunt or completely abolish the physiological testicular cooling mechanism important for normal spermatogenesis.

■Cute and comfortable: Parents love putting soft cloth diapers, available in a variety of styles and patterns, on their babies.

■Convenient: Once you’ve purchased your stash, no more weekly trips to the store to purchase more – simply put a load in the laundry!

(please visit: http://www.realdiaperassociation.org/diaperfacts.php for references)