Hey, I'm all for making people painfully aware of the environmental impact their disposable diaper-wearing kid will have ["this baby will create one ton of soiled diapers by the time he's potty trained." "disposable diapers: guaranteed to last 500 years in a landfill," etc.] just as long as there's a productive, positive response to the guilt that gets produced.
Well, now there is. Thanks to the efforts of Smallplanet and the remarkable disposable diaper composting/recycling technology of Knowaste, you can take action, and eliminate 90-95% of the landfill-filling waste generated by your kids disposable diapers. It'll be efficiently and cleanly transformed into energy-producing fuel and recycled plastic materials.
Sounds perfect! What do you have to do? It's very simple: Move to the suburbs of Toronto.
Well, now that that problem's solved, I'm gonna load up the Hummer with old batteries and lead paint, and I'm gonna dump them in the wetlands over by the hog farm lagoon.
Smallplanet: "convenience [for several Canadians] with a conscience" [smallplanetinc.com, via treehugger]
Knowaste [also available in Arnhem, NL!] [knowaste.com]
Hey, wait! Canadians use disposable diapers?
Nope, of course not. We are all tree hugging hippies up here. Didn't you get the memo?
It's just those Toronto people. You know, they think they're New York.
(I kid, Canadians...)
Ah the Canadians do have drug problems, lol. We have several Americans trying to move up there for that purpose, and I say let them. Add to the disposable diapers and hash/pot bars, lol
Better still, here in downtown Toronto we get weekly curbside pickup of our poopy diapers, courtesy of the city's composting program. (www.toronto.ca/greenbin/card.htm)
Reusable diapers are only marginally more troublesome than disposable diapers. I've done both and I prefer reusable everywhere except when traveling (e.g., more than one day away from home).
Sure, I wash diapers every four days, but when you have a kid, you're washing more anyway. I save oodles of money and also having extra space in the trash can. There are other advantages too, like adding more padding at night if you have a heavy wetter.
Are these just regular brands of diapers they're recycling? How do they deal with the polymer gel?
Did anyone else ever use Nature Boy & Girl diapers? Swedish brand that uses an absorbant layer made of compressed cornstarch. They're almost completely compostable (in a huge community composting facility, which we don't tend to have in the U.S.) except for the very outer shell.
Load up that Hummer! For years we here in Michigan have been taking Canada's garbage, it's time the favor was returned!!
AJ: I second all of that.
This service is also available in Australia, courtesy of www.myplanet.com.au. We're using it, and as long as they actually ARE recycling the nappies/diapers, then all is well and good.
In the meantime, you can start by following the teeny tiny directions on the disposable diaper package that tells you to dump the poop into the toilet and flush. THEN throw away the diaper. Whenever I bring this up, I get blank stares. But once they are eating/drinking anything except pure mother's milk this is so easy to do and dramatically cuts down on the stinky diaper problem.
Disposable diapers should be outlawed. We have two kids in diapers, and tell you what, cloth diapers rock!