Diapers

Some of my friends are beginning to or are having children and so I decided to research what happens with the diapers after they are used. As a past babysitter I have to admit the act of changing a baby is much better when you can just throw the thing in a diaper genie and be done with it, but what is that costing the environment in the long run.

We have adapted from the existence of human's from using cloth to cover ourselves and leaves to clean with to a society that loves disposable anything as long as it is convenient. Now some would say that we have developed into a superior society where these thoughts of convenience are now possible, but at what cost? How can we be a superior society if we end up destroying what we have?

According to my searches there is a new push to bringing cloth diapers back into use. Our grandparents and possibly even parents grew up wearing cloth diapers that their parents had to clean afterwards and they lived through it. A typical baby wears a diaper for 2 to 3 years old, in the grand scheme of someone's life span that is not very long. What is so wrong with using reusable diapers? It would save the amount of garbage that goes into the landfill and are easier on the environment.

This got me thinking what I would be able to do as a future parent, would I be able to reuse diapers? I am interested in alternatives for helping save the environment, but I don't know if I could handle cleaning and reusing cloth diapers. I am a self diagnosed germ phobic and there would be a lot of hurdles for me to over come just to even try it.

Here is a website where I found several options about cloth diapers and how to care for them, there are also links to other websites that might be useful as well.

http://eartheasy.com/live_clothdiapers.htm

What are or would you do?