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	a quiet place by peggy o'mara

A Tale of Two Diapers
Issue 138
by Peggy O'Mara

Procter and Gamble (P&G) introduced Pampers in 1961, and by the 1970s serious environmental concerns had begun to surface about disposables. Pennsylvania Boy Scouts conducting a highway cleanup campaign in 1971 reported that throwaway diapers were the single largest source of litter.

In 1975, Consumer Reports compared different brands of disposable diapers and noted that trees are cut down in their manufacture; environmentalists today suspect that some disposables come from old-growth Canadian forests. CR also published the information that intestinal and live vaccine viruses had been found in feces in disposable diapers removed from "sanitary" landfills, that flushing diapers could damage septic tanks, plumbing lines, and sewage-treatment plants, and that only commercial incinerators can safely burn disposables. Concern about human feces in landfills grew so great in the 1970s that the World Health Organization called for an end to the inclusion of urine and fecal matter in solid waste.

Parents, too, were concerned. They had begun to notice more diaper rash with disposables. The September 1979 edition of Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, called for limiting the use of disposables because a study had found that disposables caused more frequent and more severe diaper rash. That year, Oregon proposed a bill to ban the sale of disposables.

Nevertheless, P&G reported that more than 40 percent of newborns in US hospitals were diapered in Ultra Pampers in 1986. Introduced in 1985, the Ultra Pamper was the first US diaper to contain sodium polyacrylate, a superabsorbent polymer (SAP) that can absorb up to 100 times its weight in liquid.

SAPs, used initially in the US in the late 1960s by the United States Department of Agriculture, were first used in diapers in Japan, in 1982. The original superabsorbent diapers contained five to six grams of SAPs per diaper. Today's new, thinner disposables have less wood pulp and more SAPs: 10 to 15 grams per diaper. Superabsorbent diapers currently on sale at natural grocery stores contain SAPs.

SAPs can cause severe skin infections or worse. In the 1980s, SAPs were removed from superabsorbent tampons because the material increased the risk of toxic shock syndrome.

In 1988, P&G commissioned a three-year study at the University of Michigan to determine the effects of sodium polyacrylate in disposable diapers in landfills. The study showed that SAPs are environmentally safe. However, the OSHA "Material Safety Data Sheet on Superabsorbent Polymer" states, "Preexisting skin or breathing disorders may become aggravated through prolonged exposure." A study in the September 1999 issue of Archives of Environmental Health found that laboratory mice exposed to various brands of throwaway diapers suffered eye, nose, and throat irritation, including bronchoconstriction similar to that resulting from an asthma attack. The lead author of the study advised asthmatic mothers to avoid exposure to the chemicals found in most throwaway diapers. In 1989, the National Association of Diaper Services (NADS) commissioned Carl Lehrburger of Energy Answers Corporation to study throwaway diapers. Lehrburger concluded that each family that chooses cloth diapers prevents one ton of waste from entering the solid-waste stream each year. Diaper services were almost extinct in the late 1970s because of the introduction of throwaway diapers, but grew by more than 70 percent in the 1980s. Hundreds of news stories were published on the environmental impact of throwaway diapers, and parents increasingly demanded reusable cotton diapers.

Competing interests, however, conspired to undermine this trend. In June 1989, Gerber Childrenswear, and Dundee Mills, major manufacturers of cotton diapers, lobbied the US Congress for quotas on the imported Chinese cloth diapers used by US diaper services and independent retailers of cloth diapers. The quota resulted in a cloth-diaper shortage, created waiting lists at diaper services, and put many small diaper retailers out of business. Despite the quota, legislation against disposables mushroomed. In July 1989, Connecticut began to phase out the use of all disposable products, including those used in patient care. Oregon created a 50 percent recycling credit for diaper services. New Jersey legislated a tax on the manufacture of all "disposable, 'one-way,' non-reusable or non-returnable products." Connecticut and New York considered requiring labels on all diaper products stating the environmental hazards associated with their disposal. Nebraska banned the sale of all non-biodegradable diapers, effective 1993.

In 1990, the 20th anniversary of Earth Day, legislation was introduced in 24 states and dozens of smaller jurisdictions to reduce the use of disposable diapers. That year, P&G commissioned a study from Arthur D. Little. Little concluded that laundering a cloth diaper over the course of its lifetime consumes up to six times as much water as that used to manufacture a single-use diaper. In addition, the study concluded that laundering cloth diapers produced nearly ten times the water pollution created in manufacturing throwaways.

Little's study was widely criticized for not using independent data and for relying on information gathered by P&G and the single-use diaper industry. The study was further compromised because of a mathematical error, and discredited for failing to account for the water used in flushing fecal matter from single-use diapers. Nonetheless, it marked a turning point. It was the beginning of public confusion about the environmental impact of throwaway diapers.

Under the auspices of the American Paper Institute, P&G used the Little data in a 1990 letter to US legislators, but failed to disclose that the study had been funded by P&G. The company also sent 14 million pamphlets—along with discount coupons for Luvs and Pampers—to US households, claiming that their diapers could be effectively composted in municipal solid-waste plants, even though within a year they would abandon their own efforts to recycle disposable diapers as economically unfeasible. Ads appeared in more than a dozen major magazines featuring photographs of seedlings growing in pots filled with dark, porous-looking earth. The ads claimed that 80 percent of each plastic-and-paper diaper was "compostable" and could be converted into a "rich, high-quality soil enhancer that's good for planting baby flowers, trees and just about anything that grows." By some estimates, P&G spent $250 million in 18 months on advertising. Their PR blitz was a success, and eventually led to the demise of the cloth diaper and diaper-service industries in the US.

In 1991, Carl Lehrburger undertook a life-cycle analysis of diapers, his second study for NADS. It was the most detailed study to date of the environmental impact of single-use diapers and the first one not funded by the disposables industry. Lehrburger found that, compared to reusable diapers, throwaways generate seven times more solid waste when discarded and three times more waste in the manufacturing process. In addition, effluents from the plastic, pulp, and paper industries are far more hazardous than those from the cotton-growing and -manufacturing processes. Single-use diapers consume less water than reusables laundered at home, but more than those sent to a commercial diaper service. Washing diapers at home, however, uses 50 to 70 gallons of water about every three days—about the same as flushing a regular-flow toilet five times a day. These 1991 figures for gallons of water could probably be improved on using today's more energy-efficient washing machines.

According to the American Petroleum Institute, 3.5 billion gallons of oil were used to produce the 18 million throwaway diapers that Lehrburger studied in 1991. Approximately 7 billion gallons of oil each year are required to feed our disposable-diaper habit today, almost four times as much oil as is estimated to be in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

In 1991, the Landbank Consultancy, an independent environmental agency in the United Kingdom, reviewed and evaluated the available research on the environmental impact of throwaway diapers. Their conclusion: compared to cloth diapers, throwaway diapers use 20 times more raw materials, three times more energy, and twice as much water; they generate 60 times more waste.

Using the Landbank Report, the Women's International Network challenged P&G's environmental equivalency claims before the UK's Advertising Standards Authority, which ruled that P&G's claims were misleading. Under pressure from the press, P&G withdrew its claims.

The Women's Environmental Network joined with other groups in 1994 to demand a Federal Trade Commission investigation of the single-use diaper industry, charging the industry with deceptive advertising of environmental and health outcomes. P&G paid out-of-court settlements to the New York City Consumer Protection Board and to the Attorneys General of at least ten states for misleading advertising claims related to the recycling and composting of Pampers and Luvs. Environmental groups nationwide presented Earth Day awards to cloth diapers, but these amounted to little more than a eulogy. Later, the Sierra Club would list the loss of cloth diapers as one of the top environmental tragedies of the 20th century. Between 1996 and 1997, the production of cloth diapers dropped 35 percent, the membership of NADS dropped 37 percent, and disposable diapers rose as a percentage of solid waste in landfills. Today, 98 percent of all diaper-using households use throwaway diapers, which have become a $19 billion global industry.

According to a recent online survey conducted by The Green Guide Institute, 55 percent of respondents used both cloth and disposable diapers, while 33 percent used only disposables, 16 percent used only cloth, and 26 percent used a diaper service. Of those who use cloth diapers, 90 percent said they were concerned about the impact of disposables on the environment. Those who used both types used disposables most when traveling, or when away from home for more than a few hours or at night. Over 70 percent of those who used cloth used their own washer and dryer to clean their diapers.

What's an environmentally conscious mother to do?
Join the cloth-diapering renaissance. Dozens of companies online and in these pages sell all varieties of cloth diapers and accessories. Don't be intimidated by the plethora of choices; cloth diapering is very simple, and much less expensive than disposables. You need only a few dozen diapers, some pins or fasteners, a few diaper covers, and a container to store the diapers in until you wash them. If you haven't done so already, give them a try.

Join the cloth-diapering forum at www.mothering.com/discussions—it's among our most popular. Read Mothering's how-to article, "Crazy for Cloth," in the January-February 2003 issue, or online at www.mothering.com/articles/new_baby/diapers/crazy-for-cloth.html. Check out the Real Diaper Association at www.realdiaperassociation.org. If you're in the area, attend the organization's cloth-diaper demonstration at the Green Festival in Washington, DC, September 24 and 25. Mothering will be hosting the Green Kids Zone.

Most important, ask an experienced and enthusiastic user of cloth diapers to show you how it's done. Cloth diapers are an idea whose time has come again.