Kind of nifty

[hel_ana]

There was an article about Small Planet in Mississauga in Solid Waste & Recycling, one of the trade papers I read at work. They have a delivery/pickup/recycle service for disposable diapers.

Much, much better than landfill.

Looks like I have a new option for baby showers.

Comments

[culturalnomad.livejournal.com]

Recyclable diapers? We used those way back when my kids were babies! And we didn't need a special recycling service either. They were made of cloth. After the kids no longer used them, the diapers were further recycled. The best ones went to friends with babies; the worn ones got used as cleaning rags, etc. (We did use the disposable kind on rare occasions -- mainly when we were travelling.)

[hel_ana]

Well, yes. There are lots of arguments for cloth diapers -- I'm a fan of them myself and intend to use them.

But for parents whose daycare insists on disposables, or who live in an apartment building with lousy laundry facilities, or who don't have the time/energy to do cloth, this at least mitigates the problem.

The fact that this is better than what the majority of people in NA are doing now is what's important, not that it's still inferior to what you were able to do.

[culturalnomad.livejournal.com]

"The fact that this is better than what the majority of people in NA are doing now is what's important, not that it's still inferior to what you were able to do."

Granted. But it still seems rather silly to me that such a thing as this should be considered "progress." At the time my kids were in diapers, I think such an idea as this would probably have been universally laughed at.

I also wonder how "environmentally friendly" this process really is. It may be "better than landfill", as you said, but what process do they use and what other effects does it have on the environment? Somehow I doubt that water and detergent would do what is necessary. So what chemicals do they use and what happens to them after use?