It's OK. It's MUCH LESS toxic plastic.

When your product hook/ad line has to be that, with the new and improved thing, you'll throw away LESS toxic non-biodegradeable plastic... well, I gotta say THAT is REALLY a problem. "Try our new product! It's a lot less bad for the planet, while still being really bad for the planet, but less bad!!! Try it! You care about the planet, don't you? Well now we're bad but less bad! So that's good!!!"

Where to begin. Yeesh. Pampers has introduced the brand new "Dry Max" Swaddlers and Cruisers. Now, disposable diapers make my head fly off anyway, so researching this really got me. I actually had to stop reading the reviews. But I jump ahead... the line that caught my eye was this part of their ad: "Moms who use Pampers with Dry Max could together throw away the weight of 1 billion less* diapers every 3 years.**"  (*compared to previous Swadlers/Cruisers **based on 08/09 volume for Swaddlers/Cruisers)

Oh. Um. YAY!!! I can throw away LESS!!! Now, I usually do avoid diaper-talk, because I really have way too much to say about them, but the time has come. Is it me, or is this just like saying, Smoke our cigarettes, you'll get LESS cancer... or eat our crap, you'll get LESS heart trouble and fat. We're bad, but less bad, so therefore we are good.

I thought I would research a little, as is fair, and I happened upon reviews for Pampers' new and improved product. They weren't good. But that's not what struck me the most. What struck me were the comments "between" the lines... Several moms commented on the overwhelming chemical smell that came out when they opened the box. Sigh. Yeah... the reason for that is all the CHEMICALS in the DIAPERS that keep your baby SO wonderfully DRY!!!! HELLO!!! It's a core of chemicals that whisk away the pee-pee so YOU don't have to change your child so often. Chemicals, by the way, that you should be horrified to have anywhere near your baby's skin. Chemicals that are toxic to the touch, which is why they are locked away in all those layers. Chemicals that would harm your child. HARM! Just think... when you throw "away" that diaper, these same chemicals get to run and frolic and play in the environment.

So that was one crazy-maker for me. Another was a comment about how their child had more rash with this new Pampers. Yes. Because... well, see above. More chemicals to keep more dry to leave on longer to have less bulk to leave on longer... oh, I said that part twice. It is FACT that leaving your baby, your precious cargo, your widdle babykins locked in a plastic wrapping for 12 hours is gonna give it more of a RASH!!! These things were not MEANT to keep your baby's skin from breathing for hours on end! Parents say they like plastic toxic disposable (?? throwing away only means it's no longer around YOU... it ain't goin' anywhere, it's still ON the Earth) because they don't have to change the diaper so often. Well. Hi. I'm obvious, and you are? Baby's skin was designed so as to need diaper-changing on a fairly frequent basis. If you are too lazy to change your child every few hours and therefore need to pollute and toxify MY home, the planet, with your plastic poop-bombs, then maybe you should have re-thought the whole having-a-baby thing.

There were other comments about chafing and roughness and price... on and on and on... 'til I really HAD to stop reading. Why? Because EVERY ONE of these issues could be avoided completely by using cloth diapers. Every one. Every single one. No chemicals, less rash, no roughness... crazy money-savings over the course of the diaper-stages... but way too many people still have some old pre-concieved prejudice against cloth diapers and refuse to even try them. I've had the whole "YOU come do my laundry then"-thing thrown at me. Well, no, you are the one who chose to have a baby. Guess what. Babies poo. Babies get smelly. Didn't know that? Of course you did. Live with the consequences. Babies are not convenient or easy or neat. They are work and they get messy and if you think they are worth it then deal with it or don't have one.

Shew. See why I usually avoid this topic? Hahhaha. Cloth diapers are the best things ever. Safe, long-lasting, good for your baby... there is nothing bad about them. Pampers, on the other hand, are so bad that their ad campaign has to be that you'll still have garbage, just less of it. Wow. Somehow, I am not impressed. No one should be impressed. P&G gets a big boo on this one. If we never sold so-called disposable diapers ever again, I would be very happy. "Drier"? "Thinner"? So what. Still bad, still toxic, still the wrong choice.