Good Witch, Bad Witch, Plumbers and Diapers

John Smith, the Arizona Green Plumber, has a radio show. He asked me to be a guest, and I was happy to do so. He said we'd talk about my pet peeves in Green (THAT changes daily!) and whatever else came from that. It started out cordially enough. (You can listen to it anytime here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/thearizonagreenplumber/2012/04/20/the-arizona-green-plumber-talks-with-the-good-green-witch) 

I like John a lot. He wrote a great book on his journey to being The Green Plumber. He sent it to me. I liked it a lot, too. I figured we would talk about wasting water. After all, that's something he runs into every day.

  

But somehow, the topic turned to one of my BIGGEST pet peeves: disposable diapers. His co-host, G.G. (Green Girl!), had a lot to say on that. She has kids, she used them on said kids. She thought my point of view and *tone* were perhaps a little much. Well, over the years, I've learned my tone is my tone, and I refuse to tone it down. What's at risk here is too important. So I am putting the show link out here for you, my readers my friends, to judge for yourselves... who won this one? Who comes away with it? It's OK, you can say I might have been a little wrong. I won't accept it, but you can say it!

My Plumber-Buddy John!

You know, I go to a lot of events, and I see the women who speak, and I want to do that, I really do! But my message isn't for the people who are already at those events. Those people already know what I'm talking about. I have to reach the people who don't know...

Apparently, I have a lot to say, and I'm pretty sure I'm always right. Hahahahahh.... ahhh Hubris. I hope you take a listen and let me know!

Speaking of All Things Baby...

Stumbling around the Natural Products Expo in search of green baby things, mind reeling from information overload, I saw lots of cloth diaper booths. This is good. My favorite was Sweet Pea Diapers (http://www.sweetpeausa.com/pages/Why-Cloth%3F.html) , because they were cute and colorful and the lady there told me that I should try the financial aspect of getting people to switch. Oh, and the smelly aspect. And the health aspect. But mostly the money. I didn't buy any for the upcoming step-grandchild, because it is clear they will not be used. Because they are smelly and messy. Except that they are not. They are better and cheaper in the long run and easier and oh so much healthier. But that never seems to matter. Because parents are afraid it will be too smelly. Sigh. I've covered before how with ALL diapers, you are supposed to take the waste and actually FLUSH it, and you then do not have nearly as much a smell as you think you will. And not nearly as much extra laundry as you think you will. And disposable diapers are not meant to wrap up the smelly waste and then tossed in a "genie" then the landfill where you can forget it forever. No. But, no one cares to look into that. Even though they know that is a giant part of having a baby: diapers. Yeah, let's slap toxic chemicals and bleached products and rash-causing plastics on the most delicate of skin. Cuz, you know, there might be smelly consequences otherwise. It's hard. Can't have that. That delightful lady told me that, done properly, a bin of waiting-for-laundry diapers is a rose garden compared to a bin of disposables.

Cute Sweet Pea Diapers

I also found a little campaign called Change 3 Things (http://change3things.com/index.php) that asks parents to "commit to using 3 cloth diapers a day instead of disposables for 1 year." Hmm. Seems like that should be doable. It's for the child's future and well-being after all, right? Don't you want them to have health and a nice planet on which to live and raise their children? No? Because it's smelly? And hard? Here are the fun little factoids they toss out (direct quotes):

• One baby contributes at least 1 ton of waste in diapers alone to a local landfill.
• Disposable diapers are the third most common consumer product in landfills today.
• A disposable diaper may take up to 500 years to decompose.
• A family can spend $1500 to $2000 or more on disposable diapers by the time the baby has moved to potty training.

One baby = 1 ton of waste? How many babies are born each day, month, year? And we have no idea how long it will take to decompose because none of us will be here that long. And plastic doesn't decompose and go away, it just gets smaller and smaller and stays around pretty much forever. And I would say a family would spend a lot more if they changed the baby as often as it SHOULD be changed, but because Pampers keep babies falsely dry for so long, parents will often leave the same diaper on way too long, contributing to rashes that require even more money shelled out on doctors and creams. Not to mention the suffering of the poor kid and the crying and sleeplessness of all involved. 

You know, because cloth diapers are smelly. We can't be bothered. 

It's funny that having a baby seems to absolve parents from doing the right thing by not just the rest of us, but by their own baby, as well. Because it's hard. And, oh, yeah, here's that point again: I don't have any so I can't have a say.

Except for that little part that, yes, I can.

Your Right to Convenience

You have the right to have convenience. You have the right to make garbage. You have the right to waste water. You can do whatever you gull-durn please. If you want to triple-plastic-bag your leaky chicken at the grocery store, by good-goddamn it is your right to do so. You want to have a baby, and gosh-darn it, you are going to use plastic diapers, because gosh-darn it, you are going to be tired, and you know what? Shit stinks. And YOU do not want to have to deal with that.

Umm... yuck.

Yeah, I heard that from my own step-daughter. She NEVER planned to use cotton diapers, and now she IS pregnant. Even though the "disposable" ones (quotes on that, because they are NOT disposable, they are just moved away from YOU to another place) are bad for the planet, bad for the kid, bad for... well, ME. Yeah. They are getting added in to MY world. Why don't I have a say in that? Because YOU must have your convenience? Even though you KNOW babies poop and it smells bad, but you are going to have one anyway, but the rest of us have to revolve around that? What about OUR rights to a clean planet? No? Nuthin'? Not so much?

So you have the right to use plastic. And you don't think the government should step in and ban plastic bags, because that is an infringement of your rights, and, after all, where will it end?? You know - smokers as the same thing... no smoking on the beaches, public places, what's next? You're own home? Yes, actually, in some towns you cannot even smoke in your own back yard. Because smoking hurts people other than the smokers. Well, guess what - your water waste is hurting those who DON'T waste. Because, just like we share the air, and you don't want to smell their cigarette smoke, we share the water, and I want to have mine around to use when I want, and since I use it responsibly, YOU should too. But you don't. So we have to put bans and limits on water usage sometimes. But guess what? I have to follow the same bans and limits, even though I wasn't the problem.

Likewise, because YOU can't be bothered to ease up on the plastic, MY Earth is polluted, even though I have been enjoying it responsibly. Your gross dirty diapers are in my environment, even though I had nothing to do with them. But there they are.

So, I ask again: where does your right for convenience end, and my right for a healthy planet begin? It doesn't seem to matter, so long as things are easy for the masses.

Man, I would LOVE an answer to that one...

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.

"Disposable" just means YOU don't see it anymore.

"Disposable: Made to be thrown out ofter use." Let's think about all the things we throw out. We have disposable razors. We used to have disposable cameras before digital came around. There are disposable forks spoons knives plates, napkins, etc. Some people think cell phones are disposable. And there's the big one that I hate: disposable diapers.

When something is "disposable", that doesn't mean that once you are done with it, it goes into magic garbage land far far away on another planet in another universe. It goes into the landfill over in the next county, or the next state, or the next country; and it especially goes into the ocean. ( http://www.greatgarbagepatch.org/) This is not OK. It's not OK for the planet and it's really not OK for your kids and their kids. Sure, when you throw that diaper out, it's gone from your mind, your home, your life. Right? Wrong. That little plastic poopie-bomb will be around for the next 3 or so generations of your family. At least. Nice legacy to leave for them.

Do we really NEED disposable things? Razors: nope. The replaceable heads on a non-disposable razor not only work better, they last longer and mean much less waste. Remember, waste doesn't just happen when you throw it away; there is the waste of producing the products in the first place. There's a whole lot goin' on there. Plates and utensils? Nope. These are next-to-never necessary. (Ever?) Some would argue that the water needed to clean regular plates etc. makes up for the waste caused by throwing the paper or Styrofoam plates and plastic sporks away. Nope. There is much more water used in the production of these products that we use washing the real stuff. Do you want to argue convenience at a picnic or time saved because you are too busy to wash? Nope. Not worth the price to the planet. Single-use plastic bottles? Covered that one in a previous blog! And as for the big one: diapers. NOPE. Disposable diapers should be the extreme exception, NOT the rule. Again, the water needed to wash cloth diapers makes up for itself in the water saved by not producing plastic diapers. Cloth diapers are made so well these days that there is no excuse. The smell, the gross-factor? Guess what: you had a baby. Babies poop. Babies smell bad sometimes. Babies need changing. You knew this when you signed on to have one. If you don't want to deal with the mess, you shouldn't have HAD a baby. Babies are messy. Deal with it. Remember the legacy I mentioned above? Is that really why you had a child -- so they would have to deal with the after-effects of YOUR wasteful ways? I hope we can say, "Of course not!" Do we want to leave them a nice clean healthy planet, or one where the Oceans are full of plastic and the landfills are taking over and cancer is everywhere because of what we've done to the planet?

Guess what: that's what's happening now. We have to change. We have to quit being so disposable. Because "disposable" doesn't mean it goes away forever. It just means it goes away from YOU.