We’ve been selling a lot of flat diapers lately. When I take phone orders, I usually ask the customer about the choices they are making. One customer ordered a few diapers a couple of months ago and liked them so much she called back to order three dozen more.

• “Are you using pins or Snappi or anything else to secure the diapers?” I asked.
• No, she just uses a snug cover.
• “What do you like best about them?”
• Absorbency. She folds them in four (first the long way, then across) and tucks the rectangle into a cover.

This is so different from the way I used flat diapers with my children, shaping them in an hourglass and adding another layer down the center. It’s just a plain rectangle. You can fold and bunch it any way that works for your child. And, size is less an issue than with fitted diapers.

The great thing about flat diapers, the biggest selling point in my opinion, is the use of only 100% organic cotton for every part of the diaper, including the thread. No elastic or plastic snaps.

If you are looking for a 100% organic cotton cloth diaper and you want more flexibility than you can get with fitted diapers, try Firefly Flat Diapers. Buy 3+ to save.

The Sundance Channel’s new environmental program, The Green, has several very interesting episodes available for view online. Look at this list and see if you see what I do:

• Crapshoot: The Gamble with Our Wastes - dangerous sewer toxicity
• Waste = Food - planning true recycling of waste from the moment of manufacture
• A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash - when oil fields go dry

I see diapers.

Sewer Waste? I have seen lately how many people are flushing petro-chemical wastes down the toilet in the name of eco-diapers. What does this add to the toxic load of our wastewater treatment systems?

Waste = Food. To make diapers truly sustainable, everything left after the working life of a diaper needs to become food for another process.

Crude. I continually wonder why people are willing to use plastic, a product that originates as crude oil, to do a job that renewable resources do perfectly well.

Apparently, Green is the new Black, or so this week of Green events at the London College of Fashion would lead us to believe.

The more fashion and mass apparel industries talk about sustainability in clothing, the closer we come to that tipping point when the mainstream public is aware of the importance of sustainable fibers and low-impact clothing. And, you and I know that a focus on sustainable and renewable fibers leads to cloth diapers.

I find it interesting that green fashion is debated at the same time that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is figuring out, OK, so what do we DO about it. There is style and substance all tied up in one tidy week.

With the warmer weather (89 degrees for us today) comes the season of the sustainability fair.

Last Fall I went to the national Green Festival with Real Diaper Association and Mothering Magazine. While I can’t deny that it was great to see what the bigger national companies are doing to promote greener living, I find myself more excited about my local sustainability fair, Live Green in Salt Lake City, which is coming up in a couple of weeks.

Rather than a focus on the tightly LoHaS marketed national brands, I get to see and chat with the same people who cook food I like to eat, who grow the plants I put in my yard, who write articles I read, and even people with whom I sit through meetings as we plan local educational programs. These are my people, and they are all gathering together.

Do you have a local sustainability fair? Check local free weekly papers, the Buy-Local council, or farmers market if you don’t already know whether you have a local green fair.