When new parents weigh their diapering options, they often find cloth vs. disposable articles telling them there is little or no difference in their choice. You have all seen these simplistic comparison lists in simplistic parenting mags. So have I. On what do they base their analysis? Studies funded or sponsored by manufacturers of throwaway petro-chemical diapers. How the numbers play out in the analysis depends on how you draw the boundaries of the question. Use the least energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly methods of cloth diapering, and you will shift the numbers. Pretend that cloth diapers are changed 12 times a day and disposables only 3 times a day, and you will shift the numbers. If you shift enough numbers, you can make those numbers show that the lowest possible impact one-time use diapers can be compared to the highest possible impact reusable diapers. The outcomes are determined by framing the original assumptions.

Let’s reframe our assumptions. Let’s assume that you as a cloth diapering parent want to make the most environmentally-friendly and energy-efficient choices. Drop out of the high-impact discussion altogether and figure out how to make your cloth diapers a better choice. Organic cotton reduces the impact of chemicals from field through factory when compared to conventional cotton, so you buy organic baby diapers. Don’t stop with that one choice, though. How are the diapers made? How do you buy? How do you wash the diapers? Every step of the way you can reduce the impact of your choice.

Home laundering can require more energy than commercial laundering (diaper service). A story I saw this week tells me that our impact can be lowered with this step, too.

Fuel Costs Drive Coin Laundry into Sun-Energy Vanguard
July 31, 2006 — By Michael Tarm, Associated Press

World’s Largest Laundromat outside of Chicago uses 36 10-by-4-foot solar panels to power the 24-hour laundry. The place is huge. They have 153 washers and 148 dryers. If the story ended there, it would be a simple profile, but it goes on to explain how, why, and when they use solar power.

I pulled the story from Environmenal News Network, but this AP story is making the news rounds of big and small media in the past few days–including business papers and sites. Isn’t that interesting? If it isn’t interesting yet, let me help you get interested.

Owner Tom Benson made this choice not because it was best for the environment but because it lowered his energy costs. The lower environmental impact in this case is also better for the bottom line of the business. This is why business papers and websites are all over the story. “This happens to be one of these wonderful cases where the idea works on every level,” he said.

The implications of this are huge. Could this not influence diaper services to not only lower their costs but gain attention for better environmental choices by using solar energy to power their laundry services? Would you be willing to lower the impact of your cloth diapering impact by using solar power? Do you do it already? My family wasn’t in a position when washing diapers to switch to solar power, but I think selling diaper services on solar power is doable. Solar power for laundry is a smart business decision.

My partner, the Dye Master, suggests that all the World’s Largest Laundromat needs to do now is add a Living Machine outside to recycle the water. (Read about Living Machines at Wikipedia.) You know there will always be more steps we can take to lower our impact.

Don’t panic. One step at a time.

In the Diaper Underground, I have watched several cloth diaper generations* reinvent the same diapers several times. It is fascinating to see mothers meet similar situations with similar solutions. I don’t see a problem with us all finding personal solutions to the fact of babies’ elimination, but I would suggest that we don’t necessarily need to reinvent the solutions. Women (and, yes, I mean women) have been creatively addressing this need for a long time before the internet made the Diaper Underground possible. We may not be able to reach easily into the deep past, but we have several generations of knowledge just waiting for us to ask. Even if your mother diapered you in the passing era of throwaway diapers, your grandmother should know cloth diapers. Ask her.

Asking your grandmother, interviewing her, and collecting a cloth diaper oral history from her is the point of Real Diaper Association’s project Your Grandmother Should Know. This year-long project is the RDA’s annual educational campaign to fulfill the mission of the organization. This year, we “connect current cloth diapering parents to the long history of cloth diapering.” We will support members in collecting interviews during this year, then collect those interviews in various formats the following year. What we do depends on what we get, but we have an active DJ looking for audio and a Real Diaper Circle creating an instructional video already.

We don’t have to convince ourselves that it is necessary to reinvent cloth diapers. The knowledge was never lost. You can learn about cloth diapers the same way your grandmother and her grandmother did, face-to-face from the women with experience.

Would you like to participate in the project by interviewing your grandmother, your mother, or any other person who remembers using cloth diapers? Join us. You don’t need to be an RDA member to participate (though we would love to have you join). To start, read about the project and make a plan. I have created Project Guidelines available as a book ($10.95) or as a free download for you to print yourself.

* A diaper generation is about 2 years — the time it takes one child to grow out of diapers.

Your Grandmother Should Know:
An Oral History of Cloth Diapers from RDA

If you are trying to do your best for the environment, here is another way to tie yourself up in knots. You may have heard of the Buy Local movement. You may see “Buy Local” stickers and signs at some of your favorite independent bookstores and food coops. How far can you take the idea of buying local?

Local food. The local food movement encourages us to buy from local farmers. This has had enough of an impact on the global food industry that market research studies are now available on the impact of the Buy Local movement on the industry. When we act on our desire to support local agriculture through our diets, we have an impact on economy, health, and community. Less fossil fuel is required to bring our food from field to table. Local foods often have less packaging. We eat food sooner after it is harvested. We support the local economy, especially small farmers.

100-Mile Diet. We can make eating local more specific. When two concerned Canadians launched their 1-year experiment with a 100-Mile Diet last year, they got a lot of attention. Others joined in, started their own 100-mile diets, and reprinted the original blog entry like crazy.

Dress local. We can also take the idea even further. Dress local, too. In their “Hunt for an Ethical Wardrobe & The Soul of Cloth,” two other Canadians set out to buy only “locally designed and manufactured” clothing. A blog entry from The Tyee, the same site that hosted the 100-mile diet declaration, tells the story of their 100-mile wardrobe. The Organic Consumers Association has reprinted the original blog entry as well as an Utne Reader article about dressing local.

How can you bring this idea home? Buy local, of course. If you are fortunate, you may find that local businesses have already formed a business network. The day I write this, organizations local to me are featured at Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE): spotlight Salt Lake City and the organizations Vest Pocket Business Coalition and Local First Utah. Look! There are some of my favorite stores, and many of them are SLC e2 businesses (environmentally and economically sustainable, just like I’m an SLC e2 citizen trying to become carbon neutral). BALLE is a network of over 5,000 local businesses in 30 networks. Find a local business network near you.

Your Local Economy. What has this to do with you besides encouraging you to consider the vitality of your own local economy? Well, that is the point. In the Diaper Underground, a lot of people buy diapers that travel a long way before they reach the baby, and materials already travelled a long way before the diapers were manufactured. You can slow the burn of fossil fuel and participate in your local economy if you buy locally manufactured cloth diapers.

1. Use your zip code to check the 100-mile diet map.

2. Check cloth diaper directories and parenting groups to find local cloth diaper manufacturers or retailers within your 100-mile radius. Try a location search at Diaper Pin.

3. Buy local diapers.

4. Tell me if it works.

I don’t know if there are enough small cloth diaper manufacturers that this can work, but I would like to know how it goes.

Add Life and Connection to Economy. What is the benefit? Real life is face to face. Deep knowledge is face to face. I have always been happy to deliver local packages personally because I want to meet the families who use Firefly Diapers. I did this when we lived in Buffalo, New York, and I do this now in Utah. When I moved back home to Utah last fall, my very first paying customer from many years ago was among the first to welcome my family and invite us for dinner. Last week, I spent a lovely afternoon at a local park with one of my earliest customers, and I have plans to spend an afternoon next week with one of my most enthusiastic current customers. Two of these women, as a matter of fact, have been long-time collectors of Firefly Quick Dry Color Diapers (and you can see their colorful Firefly Diapers stashes here). Buying local creates more than an economic network. It adds life and connection to the local beyond the experience of consumption.

When I founded Real Diaper Association, I built the philosophy of local communications into the structure of the organization through Real Diaper Circles. People have passed knowledge of cloth diapers face to face through generations. This is the idea behind our new oral history project, Your Grandmother Should Know (more on this later). You can reclaim that local knowledge and your local economy through simple steps.

Support your local diapermaker. Buy local diapers, and create a 100-mile diaper stash.

I like Firefly Quick Dry Diapers and other fitted cloth diapers. It’s true. But I can’t help thinking at times that the materials and labor that go into complex diapers would be better spent elsewhere in our society. I wanted to be sure that Firefly Diapers offered a simple cloth diaper solution, too.

My answer: flat organic cotton diapers.

For our first child, we used only flat diapers for the first several years. No pins. No Snappi. Just tri-folded and slightly fanned terry and flannel rectangles set into a cover. To help prevent sagging, we also used T-shirts that snapped underneath. No sagging, little (though some) leaking, and no problems. A snug cover does most of the work of keeping the diaper where it belongs.

Rather than use woven flannel and terry for Firefly Diapers, I chose unbrushed French terry knit. I quite liked having the texture of terry on one side our diapers to give us the choice in how to use them, so I make sure our flat diapers have one side smooth and one side nubby. Any fold used for prefold diapers will work. I often stuffed wash cloths or wipes inside the folded flat diaper to add absorbency, and I doubled the diapers at night.

As much as I like the convenience and the snug fit of Quick Dry Diapers, if I had to diaper another baby, I am sure I would use a simpler diaper, like organic cotton Firefly Flat Diapers. We make these in 3 sizes that fit together well to grow with your baby.