Your Environment

Top Ten Environmental Reasons For Choosing Cloth Diapers

1. Disposable diapers use 2x as much water as cotton diapers.

2. Disposable diapers use 3x as much energy as cotton diapers.

3. Disposable diapers generate 60x more solid waste than cotton diapers.

4. Disposable diapers use 20x as much raw materials as cotton diapers

5. 1 billion trees per year are destroyed to make disposable diapers---approximately 4.5 for each baby who uses them

6. It takes between 200-500 years for a disposable diaper to decompose.

7. Disposable diapers are the third largest single consumer item in landfills, and represent 30% of non-biodegradable waste

8. 1 ton of garbage is created for each baby who uses disposable diapers

9. 1 cup of crude oil is used for the plastic in 1 disposable diaper

10. 18 billion disposalbe diapers are used in the U.S. each year ­ enough to stretch to the moon and back 9 times

The sources for the facts listed above are the following: Sierra Club, Californians Against Waste, Rhode Island Solid Waste Management Agency, Lehrberguer Report on the Impact of Diapers on the Environment, Greenpeace, Environmental Defense Fund, Center for Policy Alternatives