To ‘g’ or not to ‘g’

Posted on Wednesday, October 29, 2008 by bbb-admin

We’ve had a lot of inquiries lately regarding gDiapers.  Hopefully I can offer a little bit of clarity, without stepping on too many toes.  Let’s start with what I like about these diapers:

  1. The cool packaging, almost entirely devoid of plastic (unfortunately this is only true of the starter kits, as the refills are shrink-wrapped in plastic)
  2. Very innovative, home-grown company that decided to think outside of the conventional diapering box.  We do give them credit for their efforts to improve upon the age-old dilemma of how to ethically diaper our little bambinos.
  3. They make our babies bums irresistibly cute, crawling around with their little orange or cream colored tushes
Here’s where I see the problems, though.  First of all, the very fact that they are a hybrid (part cloth, part disposable) means that you have the negative implications of both diapering choices.  We have heard many times that these diapers tend to leak which means that you have the laundering of the reusable cloth diaper cover, or at very least the reusable plastic liner.  Of course opponents to cloth diapering site water consumption as one of the problems with using cloth.  I know that washing a cloth diaper equals about the same amount of water as a toilet uses in one flush.  Because gDiapers also have the disposable refill that is flushable, not only are we “flushing” when we wash the cloth cover, but we’re also literally flushing when we dispose of the disposable liner.  And twice, actually, because the instructions warn us to flush the liner in two separate flushes to avoid clogging the toilet (which I managed to do each time I tried to use these diapers anyway).  For those with unreliable plumbing or who prefer the convenience of tossing the liner this is the same environmental impact as using other (albeit biodegradable) disposables.
Now just to provide a little bit in the way of gory details with what happens to the stuff we flush… The phrase, often used in regards to money, that you may very well have flushed it down the toilet is a little bit misleading.  This usually refers to something that is gone for good.  Not so with the solid waste that we flush away.  In fact, most of the solids when “treated” simply float to the surface and have to be disposed of, usually in a landfill like anything else that we don’t know what to do with.  In Metro Vancouver, while some of the solid waste gets composted, most of it is sent to a landfill a province away because our own landfills don’t accept sewage (not that we can blame them!).
So now let’s tabulate the environmental drawbacks of good old gDiapers:
  1. water and consumption to wash the cloth cover and plastic liner
  2. water usage to flush the refill liner or landfill space to toss the liner
  3. usage of fossil fuels to transport sewage to a landfill, which is where the flushed liner would most likely end up anyway
We feel sad that the impact of these diapers is so bleak.  We do applaud this company for their efforts and given a choice between these diapers and the mainstream drugstore brands we would hands-down put our kids in these.  We also realize that they have a very loyal following and will therefore continue to sell them on our site.  If you are one of these loyal followers and would like to leave a comment I would like to encourage you to do that.  We appreciate all the insights shared from our fellow parents.
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