Before Girl Wonder was born, I looked into different diaper options for her. I started at the top of the eco-friendly choices and considered cloth diapers. I live in an apartment, though, with a washer and dryer four flights down, so washing them would have really been time consuming. I also didn’t think my neighbors would appreciate using the machines after I did.
So what’s a Green Girl to do when cloth isn’t an option? Let’s take a look.
Gdiapers are probably your “greenest” option after cloth since they’re plastic free and biodegradable. They can be flushed down the toilet (after giving them a “swirl” with a stick that’s part of the gdiapers kit), composted, or tossed into the garbage if you don’t compost or trust your plumbing. I tried gdiapers but didn’t stick with them because I personally didn’t like how wet they got so quickly. It is recommended that you change gdiapers more often than other “disposable” diapers and this, along with the fact that they’re a bit more costly, led me to look for other options. Gdiapers can be found at Babies R Us, Diapers.com, and Amazon, to name a few.
Nature Babycare Diapers are what I would consider the next down on the “eco” scale. They have been awarded the Eco Label “Good Environmental Choice” of Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC), have no oil-based plastics against baby’s skin, are chlorine-free with natural based material, their packaging is based on 100% natural renewable material which is 100 % compostable, and are latex, fragrance, or TBT (tributyl tin) free. Nature Babycare diapers are made from 60% renewable raw materials, however, they are not 100% bio-degradable at this time. Nature Babycare diapers can be found at Diapers.com and some Target stores.
Tushies Gel Free Diapes are latex-free, perfume-free, dye-free, TBT-free, GMO-free, are made from Chlorine-Free woodpulp, and do not contain recycled materials. Because these Tushies diapers are gel-free, they will need to be changed more often. Tushies Gel Free diapers can be purchased at Diapers.com
Seventh Generation’s diapers are Chlorine free, fragrance free, latex free, and hypoallergenic. They are not biodegradable. My daughter uses these at night and I’ve been very happy with them. Seventh Generation diapers can be found at many locations including Babies R Us and Diapers.com. I get mine through Amazon’s “Subscribe and Save” where it works out to about $8.00 a pack.
Earth’s Best Diapers are Chlorine free, latex-free, dye-free, perfume-free, and contain natural absorbent material such as corn and wheat. These diapers also are not biodegradable. I personally feel they have a really nice fit. Earth’s Best diapers can be found at Babies R Us, Amazon, and Diapers.com.
Huggies Pure and Natural Diapers
Huggies Pure and Natural Diapers are made from organic cotton. That’s where the “eco friendliness” ends. I feel Huggies is pushing a whole lot of greenwashing with these. Because there’s no law stating how much organic material has to be used to call an item “organic”, these diapers could be made of 100% organic cotton, or very little. These diapers are also bleached with Dioxane.
So tell us, dear readers, have you tried any of these? Do you have any cloth diaper experience? Do you live outside the United States and use “eco” diapers I haven’t listed? We want to know.
When I think about how many non-eco friendly diapers I put into landfills over the course of five years, I’m horrified. I wish I’d known about these options a decade ago.
Could one of the Eco Women put together a post like this for cloth/reusable diapers? We’re lucky enough to have a washer/dryer in our apartment so we’d like to try that for our first baby – coming this March!
We are lucky to have a house with a HE washer, so we have cloth diapered since day one. I like pocket diapers the best, the 2 brands we use are BumGenius and FuzziBunz. The main difference between the two is the closure, velcro vs. snaps. For vacation where we don’t have access to a washer, we use the 365 diapers from Whole Foods. I think they are pretty comprable to the Seventh Generation ones. I did a post awhile ago with more info: http://fromdormstodiapers.blogspot.com/2009/07/praise-for-cloth-diapering.html
We cloth diaper at home, but use Nature Babycare when we travel. They have worked very well for us, but our Target does not carry them anymore, so we have to drive across town to get them at Babies R Us or order from diapers.com. We also used the 7th generation diapers when he was a newborn (Nature Babycare starts at size 1) and those worked well then, but the tabs do not stretch at all and often left marks on his legs. None of the mainstream diapers (pampers, huggies, etc) worked for us as our baby had HORRIBLE diaper rash after using them (primarily at the hospital). Once we switched to 7th generation & eventually cloth, we have had a rash free bottom.