Why We Choose Cloth, Part One
There’s something special about cloth. Of course, for us, cloth diapering represents our business and our livelihood – but even before we started Pumpkins, we always had an appreciation for this particular parenting choice. While we certainly don’t in any way judge parents who choose to use disposables for their baby, we do want to highlight some of the reasons that ultimately lead to our family’s decision to use cloth diapers. Today, we’re sharing Part One of our two-part blog series highlighting why we choose cloth. Let’s dive in by talking about one of the biggest reasons of all: our responsibility to the planet.
Benefits for the Environment
One of the main reasons to choose cloth diapers over disposables is our environment! We only have one Earth to live on, and we want to do our part to help to reduce the amount of waste that is passed on to our children and grandchildren. We’re guests on this planet – and we’ve always been told that the very best guests leave a place cleaner than they found it! Unfortunately, when it comes to diapering, disposables aren’t doing a lot to help us on this front.
Disposable diapers are one of the largest contributors to our landfills – from birth to potty training, a child will use more than 5000 diapers!!! To make the situation worse, while modern diapers may be ultra-absorbent, they do not effectively break down or compost when thrown away with the rest of our household garbage. Plus, don’t forget all that added waste from disposable wipes, plastic packaging, and diaper genie bags – all associated with disposable diapers! Even if you’re not keen on making the switch to cloth, a great way to cut back on the environmental impact associated with disposable diapers is to choose to go with reusable cloth wipes and a washable pail liner instead of their throwaway counterparts; even a small change like this can have a big impact over the course of a child’s life.
Waste Not, Want Not
Beyond their end-of-life environmental impact, disposable diapers also require incredible amounts of water to manufacture, due to the intense process required to convert wood pulp into usable, absorbent fluff. By contrast, the water used to run an extra load of cloth diapers through the laundry every 2-3 days is equivalent to a toilet-trained adult flushing 5-6 times a day – or, to put it another way, cloth-diapered babies require no more water to “do their business” on a daily basis than they will once they are fully-grown – which is pretty fantastic, in our books. Pumpkin’s also helps to reduce water usage even further by optimizing our wash routines and using commercial equipment, in order to boost our efficiency and wash more diapers per load.
Cloth diapers are great for the environment, which is one of the main reasons why we’re such big advocates for cloth diapering– both as parents, and business owners. Be sure not to miss our next blog, which will feature the second of our two-part series detailing our decision to choose cloth, and talks about all the ways that cloth diapering benefits not just the little ones, but the entire family. In the meantime, if you’re stuck wondering if cloth is the right choice for you, feel free to get in touch – we’re always happy to chat about the ins and outs of cloth diapering, and love sharing our cloth journey with anyone who’s interested to hear it!