I have always been green that is to say I care about the environment and the impact that I have on it with my thoughts and actions. That's how I met my husband Dave and even though we live and work in a city we are committed to reducing our carbon footprint with everything we do. So when I knew that I was expecting my first child I started to research green diapers knowing that any baby uses a number of green diapers a day and that a workable solution needed to be found.The biggest challenge I faced with green diapers was the old cloth vs. disposable diapers question but instead of automatically discounting disposable green diapers I factored them into my research to reveal the full picture of which green diapers are actually more eco friendly as there are so many different things to take into account like do you have a washing machine (we don't we use one in the building that is communal), where do you live, is it in a house or an apartment - it is not the easy solution that it may have once been. So this is what I have found in my search for information on green diapers:Disposable green diapersThe first thing that is important to remember about disposable diapers, even green diapers, is that they are made to be thrown away. I kept this in mind when I was looking at them as a solution and how that would impact the environment.One of the first things I looked at is what are they made of? Diapers, even many so called green diapers have a waterproof exterior manufactured from plastic, multiple moisture absorbing layers with an inner absorbent centre, which will lay next to your baby's bottom. Many are made from plastics, fluffed wood pulp and super absorbent polymer. The worst impact on the environment is from the plastic exteriors and the more environment friendly green diapers are those with unbleached wood pulp from a sustainable and managed source.Many disposable diapers also have a chemical gel that activates to keep baby drier. This chemical gel is made from sodium polyacrylate (SAP) and there have been some instances where this has caused skin and respiratory irritations.Out of the disposable diapers that I looked at the green diapers that were a high performance diaper were developed using the latest green technology by a Swedish company. The material that was directly against the baby's skin was corn based as opposed to plastic and they guaranteed that the absorbent material was 100% chlorine free. According to the information these green diapers are compostable - including the packaging.Using a Diaper ServiceThe practicality of using cloth green diapers is not so obvious without a washing machine in my own space it was difficult to contemplate washing the green diapers in the communal washing machine in my building. Not just difficult but downright impossible so I looked at a compromise with cloth green diapers and researched services that deliver diapers to our door - I wasn't too sure how green diapers from a service would be but I had a look anyway.The concerns that I had from using a service was that they used a great deal of chlorine on the diapers which I was concerned about being so close to my baby's skin and causing irritation A friend of mine shared with me that she had tried a service whose diapers smelled so much of chlorine and her baby had asthma like symptoms when she wore them she changed to more green diapers after that concerned about her baby's health.Cloth Green DiapersOk so after all of that if you are able to wash your green diapers at home (take into consideration water and power consumption) the most eco friendly cloth diaper is made from unbleached organic cottons or materials such as hemp or bamboo which are grown without the use of pesticides, herbicides or fertilisers. Green diapers: the best of both disposable and cloth diapers These days there is a third option that is a combination of both cloth and disposable and it is very popular with people concerned about the environment and looking for green diapers. They are made from a washable cotton cover and a flushable diaper refill, which is flushable. This refill is manufactured from cellulose fibers, which are from sustainable softwood plantations and they are completely plastic free. The diaper cover is made from cotton and is washable and reusable.Here's the great part about these green diapers and disposing of them. If the flushable liner only has urine on it, it can be added to your home compost and will apparently break down in 50-150 days. However if it is soiled with feces it can be flushed down the toilet to be dealt with properly at your local sewerage treatment plant to become a biosolid, which can be used as a rich fertilizer - it just needs to be stirred in the toilet to assist the flushing process.These last diapers, the mixture of both disposable and cloth, are the ones that I chose they are the best green diapers that I could find with my research and that tick all of the boxes that I wanted to tick with minimising our new baby's impact on the environment as well as not exposing him/her to unnecessary nasty chemicals in such an intimate way.
