Disposable baby diapers are having a huge impact on our planet by filling our landfills and waste dumps with bulky long lasting plastics. Those dedicated eco-conscious parents out there are bringing about a resurgence in cloth diaper services, although these options can sometimes present issues with water usage and chemical detergents.
Earth Baby has stepped in with a wonderful solution to your baby diaper woes with their compostable diaper service. Biodegradable baby diapers have been around for a while and are usually made from a corn based plastic (similar to those compostable/biodegradable food containers or packing peanuts), however, landfills don’t compost very well. Unless you are doing something special to compost them yourself, they aren’t actually biodegrading much faster than traditional plastic disposable diapers. Earth Baby’s service takes your sustainable rating one step further than just buying biodegradable diapers, and actually composts them for you.
The Earth Baby services offers Nature Babycare Compostable Diapers and wipes, delivering them directly to your door with every pickup. The diapers absorbent layer contains a combination of natural unbleached FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified wood pulp and super-absorbent gel. The wipes they use are 100% chlorine and fragrance free so as not to irritate sensitive baby skin.
The composting process itself isn’t too complicated, but requires higher heat than most backyard composting piles. Earth baby uses a regulated industrial composting facility to compost the diapers and wipes to ensure the safe removal of all pathogens. The result is a high quality clean soil, usually utilized as fill in construction projects and other non-agricultural applications.
The service is a very reasonable $24.99 a month (which includes multiple baby households). Several other organic and sustainable baby products are also for sale on their website, which can be added to your order and delivered right to your door. Currently, the service is only available for those living in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, but they are expanding, so check out their website and suggest they start a service in your area.
Comments 5
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Just to clear up a couple of things: disposable diapers use as much or less water than cloth diapers in their manufacturing. Not all diaper services use harsh chemicals – there are many natural cleaners available now. And most do not use pins any longer, either. Many use hybrid or alternative fuel vehicles to deliver their diapers.
While I applaud that these diapers are not going into a landfill, they are still using precious resources for a single use, as well as putting the baby in contact with the super absorbent gel aka sodium polyacrylate, which has many more nasty things in it than any chemicals a diaper service might use.
I appreciate your efforts to reach people who would never consider cloth, but please don’t criticize something that’s even greener if you are in fact trying to promote environmental friendliness.
I would be interested to make a biodegradable diaper service in France as yours. Please can I get information about your compost method ?
Thanks
Françoise
Actually I applaud this post. I think if people are willing to pay the price for biodegradable disposable diapers PLUS the cost to compost them professionally then that is great. I just wish all disposable diapers that market themselves as biodegradable would let the public know that they need to be professionally composted!!! Otherwise the public that is trying to be green is just paying double the price to use a disposable diaper.
Thank you for offering this service.
Tereson Dupuy
Hello,
I am interested in your product because I live on a small island off Vancouver,BC,Can. I also am interested because I would like to know more about your product and the cost and I am in the making of an online business and I would like to feature an assortment of biodegradable/compostable products.
I need to know if you dropship in the US or Can?
Please let me know at your earliest convenience.
Sylvie Gendreau