NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #20/NN_1992_20.iso/spool/sci/environm/11312

Internet Message Format | 1992-09-14 | 17.3 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!ogicse!das-news.harvard.edu!spdcc!gnosys!gst
From: [e-mail] (Gary S. Trujillo)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Diapers (probably a FAQ)
Keywords: diapers,environment
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 14 Sep 92 07:29:40 GMT
Article-I.D.: gnosys.1992Sep14.072940.20311
References: <[e-mail]> <ibbotson.716062227@bone6>
Lines: 343

Back in the days when I was a more avid reader of sci.environment than I
now am, I diligently archived a vast quantity of articles on a variety of
subjects.  I just checked through what I'd squirreled away on the subject
of diapers, and came up with the following.

Enjoy!

Gary

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From: [e-mail] (John Woods)
Newsgroups: misc.consumers,sci.environment
Subject: Re: disposable diapers
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 26 Jun 89 21:33:00 GMT
Followup-To: sci.environment
Organization: Misanthropes-R-Us

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] writes:
> In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
>    (J.A. Fegan) writes...
> >WASHINGTON -- (AP) --  Disposable diapers may be due for a ange.
> >    Environmental concerns -- and the fact that biodegradable diapers use a
> Anybody know if this is really true?             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> I know there is DEGRADABLE plastic trash bags on the market.  They are NOT
> biodegradable.  The difference being that DEGRADABLE plastic simply breaks donw
> into small pieces, but the plastic does not actually biodegrade.

There was an article in SCiENCE some weeks back about these plastics.  The
general idea is to form a cornstarch-plastic copolymer; the cornstarch is
quickly eaten by bacteria, the plastic may or may not be slowly eaten by
bacteria (there seems to be some evidence that the copolymerization makes
the plastic more easily digestible by bringing some of the ends of the
chains out to the surface where bacteria can get at them).  The general
tone of the article, though, was that recycling was a better bet because
garbage dumps are not good places for biodegrading ANYTHING:  the bacteria
generally don't survive more than a foot or two below the surface.

By the way, please don't followup this thread in talk.bizarre (thanks go to
'marks' for pointing followups away from talk.bizarre).
--
John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, [phone]
...!decvax!frog!john, [e-mail], ...!mit-eddie!jfw, [e-mail]
    People...How you gonna FIGURE 'em?
    Don't bother, S.L.--Just stand back and enjoy the EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS...

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From: [e-mail] (Alex Leavens)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: McDonald's and the Environment
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 5 Mar 90 17:35:46 GMT
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Alex Leavens)
Organization: Atherton Technology, Sunnyvale, CA

>Not a bad idea, but I am extremely pessimistic about our society's
current >attitude towards recycling and re-using products.  Never mind
that there is >a lot of pro-environmental talk going around these days;
people have not >made fundamental changes in their behavior that will be
necessary before a >solution [such as the one you suggest, above] is
feasable.

Our maxi-consumerist society is a _big_ problem.  One big solid waste
disposal issue that gets kicked around is disposable diapers.  Well, my
wife and I decided that we didn't want to be contributing to the problem
again (we'd used disposables for our first child), so we got a diaper
service and cloth diapers for our second baby.  Guess what?  Cloth diapers
are _easier_!  There are now available things called diaper wraps, which
are essentially the outside of a disposable diaper, but made out of
cloth.  They have velcro tabs on the back sides, and a velcro strip in the
front--you take a cloth diaper, slap it in the wrap, and put in on the
baby, same way you would a disposable.  The wet diaper goes in a hamper.
If the baby's pooped in the diaper, you dump it in the toilet, then rinse
the diaper before you put it in the hamper.  (BTW, the hamper doesn't
smell, either.  So much for 'terrible odors').  Our garbage output has
gone _way_ down (I would guess by at least 30%), our diapering bills are
way down, and we're doing something positive for the environment.  Compare
this with disposables, which leak anyway (I don't care what they say),
which often would come off (the glue on the tabs often didn't hold well),
and which were as expensive as &*!&@#*!

I think that our society has been so conditioned to the throw-away
mentality (that 'throwing away' is easier), that people just can't
conceive of a non-disposable method being better.  When we first chose to
get diapers instead of disposables, we were doing so primarily because of
concern over our baby's skin/the environment;  we expected to do a lot
more work.  If I hadn't done it myself, I wouldn't have beleived that it
would be simpler, not harder.

A lot of things in our society could be like that--but then there wouldn't
be a market for all the disposable crap that's being made.

(P.S.--anybody besides me notice that disposable straws nowadays are
plastic, not paper?  Paper ones at least would break down...)

--
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|--alex | [e-mail] |  Caution!  Falling Opinions, next 6 miles
| |     New Net Address!!: UUCP:
{uunet,ucbvax}!unisoft!bdt!dsdeng!alex     | |  "Mmmm...Ooo,
say...Yummm......Blewuechh! Tiggers _don't_ like honey."  |

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From: [e-mail] (Grant Robinson)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Mothers on disposable diapers
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 11 Sep 90 21:26:30 GMT
Organization: ClariNet Communications Corp.

Pulled this from our newswire, may spark some interest among readers of
this group.  I seriously question how much of the mother's opinons are
based on experience, and how much on advertising.  I would venture to
guess the  majority of women claim disposables are superior without ever
having tried cloth, and hence have opinions based solely on advertising.
Compliments of ClariNet: (reprinted with permission)

>From clarinews Tue Sep 11 17:02:15 EDT 1990
From: [e-mail] (PAULA DITTRICK)
Newsgroups: clari.news.children
Message-id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Poll: Four of five mothers use diaposable diapers
Keywords: misc manufacturing, manufacturing, polling services,
    service industries, children, special interest
Date: Tue, 11 Sep 90 12:11:50 EDT

                    United_Press_International

    Four out of every five mothers with young children surveyed said
they use disposable diapers, and most said they would not voluntarily
switch to cloth diapers, a recent Gallup poll showed.
    During June, Gallup surveyed by telephone a national sample of 803
mothers of children aged 3 and younger. The poll was conducted at the
request of the Diaper Manufacturers Group of the New York-based American
Paper Institute.
    ``What's important to mothers is a diaper that allows them to
provide the best baby care possible,'' Scott Stewart, public relations
director of Procter & Gamble and a member of the Diaper Manufacturers
Group, said Tuesday during a telephone interview from New York.
    The poll of mothers ``does bring up a voice that is pretty
important but seldom heard from,'' he added.
    Of those surveyed, 72 percent of the mothers said they use
disposables most often, while 7 percent reported they use cloth and 8
percent use both cloth and disposable diapers.
    The survey showed most mothers used disposables for health reasons,
with 85 percent saying disposables prevent leakage, 83 percent saying
disposables keep the baby's skin drier, 62 percent saying disposables
help prevent the spread of germs and diseases, and 60 percent saying
diaper rash is less frequent with disposables.
    The majority of mothers surveyed said they were more willing to
recycle newspapers and plastics, build a compost pile or join a car pool
than they were to voluntarily switch from disposables to cloth diapers.
    Upon questioning, 71 percent said they were very likely to recycle
newspapers, 67 percent said they would be very likely to recycle
plastics, 45 percent said they would be willing to build a backyard
compost pile and 31 percent said they were extremely likely to take mass
transit or car pool to work.
    But only 24 percent said they would volunteer to switch to cloth
diapers. Seventy-four percent reported they were very likely to support
recycling and 69 percent said they were very likely to support
composting disposable diapers.
    Two industry-funded pilot projects are under way to test the
feasibility of reclaiming the paper and plastic used in disposable
diapers, Stewart said, adding researchers have found that 60 percent of
the nation's total waste stream can be managed through municipal solid
waste composting.
    The margin of error for the poll is plus or minus 5 percentage
points, Gallup executives said.


--
Grant Robinson -- Clarinet Communications Corp., Waterloo, ON (519)-884-7473

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From: [e-mail] (Bruce Nordman)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Diapers (was Re: record cold & global warming)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 26 Jan 91 01:19:45 GMT
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Bruce Nordman)
X-Local-Date: Fri, 25 Jan 91 17:19:45 PST

<<this is an update of a note I posted 1/23 to ca.environment>>

I have recently looked in to the issue of the the comparative resource use
of disposable and renewable diapers,
There are two relevant studies commissioned by the throwaway diaper industry,
one conducted by Arthur D. Little for Proctor and Gamble, and the
previously mentioned one by Franklin Associates for the American Paper
Institute/Diaper Manufacturers Group.
There have been several critiques of these by environmental groups,
but I am aware of none that particularly addressed the question
of energy use.

I discovered that energy consumption varies greatly depending on what
kind of water heater, clothes washer, and dryer you have (including
the fuel type), and how the diapers are loaded into the machine,
what the machine is set to (full, half, etc., and water temperatures),
and to what extent you line dry.
THE BOTTOM LINE IS: energy use from cloth diaper use can either use
much less than throwaways, or much more.
Presumably, the people who care about this issue are environmentalists, who
should be conserving energy in general, so they will likely end up on
the low end.  The Franklin study accounts for the energy use in manufacturing
the cloth diaper and the detergent/bleach, and this does not change the
conclusions.

The studies conclude that diaper services use slightly more energy than
throwaway diapers.  I have not checked the reliability of these numbers,
but would guess that some diaper services use less than throwaways
and some would use more.

On the subject of water use, which diapering method uses more water
is dependant on how you wash, how you rinse/flush the diapers (or
don't), and how you compare municipal, industrial, and agricultural water.
Horizontal axis washing machines, common in Europe but rare here, use
far less water than our water-guzzling vertical axis washers.
Cloth diapers may use more water on average than throwaways,
though perhaps not as much as is claimed, but again, this is probably
not inevitable, but under the control of consumers.

Even for people who use cloth diapers, there are of course times when
throwaways have great advantages, and so using them on those occasions
makes perfect sense.  I also realize that some people, such as tenants,
do not have access to all efficient options.

The bottom line is that most of the resource use in reusable diapers is
under the control of the individual and not inherent in cloth as a material,
whereas for throwaways the consumer has little control.


If you are interested in the gory details, let me know at [e-mail].

Bruce Nordman
Energy Analysis Program
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
[e-mail]

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From: [e-mail] (Rodent of Darkness)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Diapers (was Re: record cold & global warming)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 26 Jan 91 05:25:30 GMT
Reply-To: [e-mail] (The Rodent of Darkness)
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department

I have a couple of comments to add.  First, if you dip the cloth
diaper into a toilet to rinse it off and then put it in a bucket
of water with detergent and a little bleach, it will is possible
to wash at least 20 diapers with less than 8 gallons of water (4
for the holding bucket and 4 for the wash basin).  Only the wash
basin need be filled with hot water.  The chlorine bleach should
kill the pathogens quite effectively.  Hand washing isn't as bad
as it would seem, and the diapers will last a lot longer.  (It's
a double win!)

Second, disposable diapers contain a powered anhydrous gel which
permits them to absorb several times more water than their cloth
counterparts.  In spite of this fact, cloth diapers are cheaper,
even if one uses a diaper service.  So it would appear that even
if the full cost of disposal were added to the price, disposable
diapers would still be quite popular; people would be willing to
pay the price --- they are quite convenient and do keep the baby
quite a bit drier.  The problem isn't in that a particular thing
causes waste, but rather that the cost of this waste is not paid
directly.
                              --- TS

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From: [e-mail] (Scott J. Norton)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Diaper debate!
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 2 Apr 91 01:51:50 GMT
Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino

I didn't read all of the diaper discussions but I'll try to respond to most
of the concerns.

Diapers with fecal material have been found to carry polio.  People are not
contracting diseases from fecal material that has been buried.  The landfill
operators, men or women who drive the heavy equipment or in some cases who
pick through the garbage looking for reusables or recyclables have
contracted polio from the fecal material.  Landfills are not designed to
prevent this type of disease transmittal.  Sanitary treatment plants or
sewage plants are designed to prevent diseases from affecting plant workers.
To prevent disease people should scrape the fecal material into a toilet,
and send the fecal material to the sewage plant and then throw the disposable
diaper into the garbage can.

Or better yet, use washable cloth diapers.  Diapers have become one of the most
conspicuous representatives of our wasteful society.  While there are times
where a disposble diaper is appropriate, ie, on a ten-hour flight or any other
time when you are away from a washing machine for an extended period of time,
a cloth diaper that can be used over and over again is a better choice.

The debate over disposables vs. reusables is very hot.  Manufacturers make
alot of money selling disposables.  They have and will continue to throw alot
of money into studies that prove that disposables are healthier for babies, use
fewer resources (Life-cycle analysis), are compostable, no danger to landfills,
and are the most convenient diaper to a society that demands convenience over
other societal concerns.  The other side, with no monetary goal, will use
environmental concerns, ie. cloth is reusable and made from a renewable
resources, embodying the concept of a less wasteful society.  Cloth diapers
can be used for washcloths after a baby has outgrown them.  They aren't a
danger to landfills.  They are not a major component of landfills, while
disposable diapers are 1% of the material landfilled, (13,000 tons of diapers
in San Jose each year.)  And one of the new arguments used to support cloth
diapers is that while it's true that you may have to change cloth diapers
more frequently than disposables, the time you spend with your child is
very important and diaper changing is additional time you have to form
bonds. (This last statement is used by the District of British Columbia in
their policy statement on Diapering.)

The most recent argument being used in defense of disposables is the drought.
Proponents claim that California's water shortage can be alleviated by using
disposables, manufactured in other areas that have lots of water, instead of
using reusables that have to be washed.  Using this logic, no Californian
should be using plates, glasses, towels, diapers or any other
product that has to be washed before it can be used again.  That would sell
alot of silverware!  Our water shortage requires a rethinking of water use
and in carrying capacity, not a change in purchasing habits that puts the
water burden in someone elses' backyard.

We, as individuals need to take responsibility of our own actions.  Reusables
have the least overall impact on our environment.  Use cloth diapers.

End of sermon.

Ann Schneider
Environmental Specialist, Source Reduction
City of San Jose
Office of Environmental Management
--
    Gary S. Trujillo                            [e-mail]
Somerville, Massachusetts              {wjh12,bu.edu,spdcc,ima,cdp}!gnosys!gst