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US: Diaper Gap
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    I can’t imagine what it would have been like to be a parent that has to choose between diapers and other basic expenses. Access to clean diapers isn’t just important for a child’s health and safety. Research has shown that mothers who are unable to afford diapers for their babies are more likely to suffer from maternal depression and mental health issues.

    No mother or father should have to worry about keeping their baby clean and healthy because they can’t afford diapers. America’s parents — and children — deserve better. That’s why, in addition to addressing the diaper gap in my budget, I challenged the private sector to apply their expertise and innovative thinking toward creating a solution for families that cannot afford diapers.

    https://medium.com/@PresidentObama/working-together-to-address-the-diaper-gap-63daf1885ec

    Well, shit. Diapers are high marginal products that damage ecology much more than all this plastic pockets.
    Just stop using them.

  • 25 Replies sorted by
  • paulhoustonpaulhouston

    Where is the movement of companies offering eco-friendly cloth diapers as well as affordable/efficient laundry service? In essence the customers just pay for the use of clean cloth diapers.

  • karlkarl

    At the time I was a baby it was common to use re-usable diapers made from cotton, and the "laundry service" was "do it yourself" - washing machines were already invented.

    I have never heard anyone the age of my parents complaining about that.

    So a lack of single-use diapers doesn't really alarm me - much unlike e.g. the ratio of US citizens receiving food stamps.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @karl

    You can made some search about areas this used diapers now take in developed countries. They can not be recycled :-)

  • kurthkurth

    @karl ...there's most likely a proportional relationship between people who are on food stamps and people who can't figure out how to wash dirty cotton diapers ! One of the greatest ecological disasters in mexico are disposable diapers. And as usual , obama hasn't the intelligence to see that the problem was already solved...centuries before.

  • robertGLrobertGL

    well to be fair, diapers are just another part of our continuing disaster that is waste-management. I think wide-scale implementation of plasma gasification should be implemented.. It may one day cross over into the clean-coal industry as well

  • alcomposeralcomposer

    Is it too much to ask for a biodegradable diaper? Really? Whatever happened to the plastic eating bacteria?

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @alcomposer

    You forget that used(!) diaper is not only plastic and such:-)

  • kurthkurth

    shit...by it's nature, is biodegradable ...esp babyshit !

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    shit...by it's nature, is biodegradable ...esp babyshit

    Shit in big amounts is nothing good. It requires special stations, lots of water and bacteria, and it still in result kills lot of things.

  • kurthkurth

    really ? .....guess you've never been a farmer then. Manure, as it's called, is one of the world's oldest fertilizers, usually safe when used from non-carnivore sources...like babies. Farmers, before commercial fertilizers were forced on the industry, routinely used ungulate shit combined with organic compost to fertilize their fields.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manure

    ...and contrary to recent violent criticisms of me using wikipedia as an information source, I personally mixed manure as a youngster growing up on a ranch.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Manure, as it's called, is one of the world's oldest fertilizers, usually safe when used from non-carnivore sources...like babies. Farmers, before commercial fertilizers were forced on the industry, routinely used ungulate shit combined with organic compost to fertilize their fields.

    Of course. But. It if very different, it is used is specific amounts .

    With diapers you have it mixed with other waste and in huge amounts. So even after bacteria work it will produce lot of chemical elements that will be in huge concentration at waste storage areas.

  • karlkarl

    @alcomposer: Ideonella Sakaiensis is alive and kicking. But as long as it's "dirt cheap" (pun intended) to dump your litter just somewhere, we cannot expect widespread use being made of it.

    Also, it would be much more reasonable to use bio-degradable material instead of conventional plastic for diapers in the first place.

  • alcomposeralcomposer

    Biodegradable used nappies should be fertilizer of future.

  • DouglasHornDouglasHorn

    Diapers do seem like a product that's ripe for disruption. Disposable diapers account for 2% of US waste. Many cities in the US (and I assume elsewhere) now have yard waste pickup for composting. A compostable diaper could fit into this existing and growing waste disposal service. I think compostable diapers are just starting to come on the market.

    As long as disposable diapers are available for sale, people are going to buy and use them because when you have a little baby, you are just too damn tired to do anything that isn't easy.

  • tidatida

    At the end of the day most diapers will be burned in most countries. That means you should plant more trees which can consume the carbon dioxide and convert it into bio material as well as oxygen - by our only reliably energy source - the sun.

    Normal Diaper is a complicated arrangement:

    Polypropylene: top sheet, aquisition/distribution layer, back sheet
    Poly Acrylates: super absorber
    Wood Pulp: keeps super absorber particles apart from each other - otherwise gel blocking effects

    You should also buy diapers with low comfort that baby tries to get dry earlier. (that's not wanted from the industry)

  • kurthkurth

    sorry @tida, but most diapers in most of the world, that's not the first world...which accounts for far higher birthrates, thus, far more babies, thus the vast majority of cheap disposable non-biodegradable plastic crap, are , if lucky buried in shallow landfiles ...or scattered across the countryside, thrown out of cars, and left in alleyways for streetdogs. Europe and america are a small percentage of the problem, regardless what americas idiot-for-president says. Check out a trash dump in India. or mexico, where I live ! And we need bio-degradable plastic across the spectrum. Plastic bags and plastic bottles are murdering whales. But plastic leads back to petroleum, and the worlds murdering elite have built their mansions on petroleum.

  • tidatida

    @kurth we just consume what was stored some 100Mio years ago and we even cannot see 100 years in future. Even a non-disposable will be degraded in close future when man will not exist on earth any more.

    Time will solve this issue not our intelligence.

    It's all coming to the point of energy. And the only source which we should suck as much as we can is our sun - not mineral oil or nuclear energy.

    But did you know that especially pure polypropylene is very UV-sensitive and degrades very fast at light. It's only hindered by UV-stabilizers as additive in the polymer. Even poly acrylates will decompose but it will take some decades.

    A short time after we are gone (in the time frame of million years) our mother earth will be recovered again.

  • kurthkurth

    oh...well then everythings ok...haha. Why try to stop war, mass murder, famine, genocide ....'cause one day the sun will go out like a light bulb....and humans won't exist anymore so lets help it all along !

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Why try to stop war, mass murder, famine, genocide ....'cause one day the sun will go out like a light bulb....and humans won't exist anymore so lets help it all along !

    @tida mean that issues he mentioned will happen very soon, not billions years ahead.

    For example you can search PV blog, I had posts for metals, oil, gas, etc

  • tidatida

    @kurth just what I want to say is that evolution of human species (homosapien) seems to be close to a dead end. Actual growth of population doesn't seem to show this, but it will increase the possibility of a sudden death as resources are limited.

    Sudden death means in terms of lifetime of our earth. We have developed so effective weapons that it can be even by tomorrow. The mechanism of War does work as humans are trained to manipulate - this Forum should know it very well how easy it is to manipulate. And nobody can say of himself to be resistant against manipulation - otherwise you are already in deep shit.

  • kurthkurth

    @tida .... and I shouldn't go outside, cause chances are I'll be struck by a car, or maybe lightning, or an asteroid is sure to come along and take care of all our problems. I try to maintain a shorter timeframe than the 500 million years left in the suns candle. When you have children, it tends to force that perspective. And these dayz to think homo sapien sapien is near a evolutionary deadend is a bit premature, although it's true we could easily extinct ourselves ...or drown in our plastic trash. I'd just like whales to not suffer more for our convenient life styles. I mean, we lit our streets for a hundred years with their blood. We should, for their sake, go back to paperbags and cups...and cotton diapers !

  • tidatida

    @kurth Thats excactly what I'm saying. For paperbag, cups and cotton we should start to plant trees. We should take care about the right balance between monocultures and randomly grown forests. Would be great if the clock for any additional tree on our earth surface would run as fast as our population clock....

    http://www.census.gov/popclock/

  • alcomposeralcomposer

    I love the fact that on P-V diapers = Armageddon. Serious apex predator syndrome.

    Maybe we could burn nappies in solar furnaces to generate power?

    As for planting trees, I thought that photosynthesis loves free carbon, where else does wood come from?

    Nappies -> Solar Furnace -> More Trees

  • jleojleo

    Another big market for diapers: Your supermarket chicken!

    Adults Wearing Diapers May Be Processing Your Chicken

    


    Workers processing chicken in U.S. poultry facilities are routinely denied bathroom breaks and mocked, ignored or threatened when they request them, according to a shocking new report from Oxfam America.

    


    http://www.forbes.com/sites/nancyhuehnergarth/2016/05/12/your-chicken-is-being-processed-by-adults-wearing-diaper/#5b08778b2d4a

    RADIO interview: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-thursday-edition-1.3579180/u-s-poultry-workers-denied-bathroom-breaks-wear-diapers-at-work-oxfam-report-1.3579843

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Workers processing chicken in U.S. poultry facilities are routinely denied bathroom breaks and mocked, ignored or threatened when they request them, according to a shocking new report from Oxfam America.

    And why they are denied this breaks? Must be some one bad owner with some illness in his head, isn't it? No? May be infection in this case.

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