Can disposables be cheaper?

[Nat]

My mom claims the diapers raise up our water and sewer bill and I wonder if it will be any cheaper to use disposables 24/7?

Let's see:

I rinse them out in the toilet and I have to flush it every time because no way am I sticking my hands in someone else's pee. Guess how many times a day I do this? Now add in my daughter's diapers and she goes through more than me a day.

I wash them and then rinse them

We pay for water and sewer so doubling that in our bill raises it and I do wash diapers about every other day or three.

I wonder if it will be any cheaper to use disposable. I have tried different detergents also and my diapers still smell. I am thinking about trying rock bottom or whatever that detergent is called. I have tried vinegar and they still smell and so does the washer, I have tried washing less diapers, tried the oxy clean detergent whatever it's called and they still smell, I tried rinsing them out and they still smell. I feel selfish for all this because my mom just told me she has to rewash her clothes because of the pee smell. I don't know how many times I would have to rinse them out or wash them before the smell is gone so I wonder if using disposables 24/7 be any cheaper? If diapers will be any cheaper than our sewer and water bill, then we would be saving money with disposables. I don't do the finances so I wouldn't know how high our water bill is and the sewer.

Anyone ever had any experience? Is your bill any cheaper with cloth or more?

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

That topic is so old here that it should have been put to bed ages ago. I was told by a Rhode Island State home ec social workier emphatically that, overall, disposables are more expensive and that she was seriously bent out of shape when she saw her clients using them. This was sponteneous without anything related to diapers being mentioned, only economics. In the late 1980's and article in REASON Magazine, in discussing waste management brought up the issue of bio-degradability and the attempt to creat bio-degradable diapers said that it would release toxins and bacteria into the dumps and ultimately, water table if the dumps were not harzardous-material grade and therefore, very expensive to build and keep up. In that sense, it is better to think of disposable diapers not as "disposed of" but more like "differently stored" and they should be considered more like medical waste. This means that taxes will have to be raised to accommodate this or some other method of dealing with them be found. This is especially true with the way we are going totally insane about the user end of trash and garbage management with about 3 kinds of recycle bins and all of that. As a side note

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bullshit+recycling

[Diaper_Lover_HI]

Washing of cloth diapers usually takes 2 to 3 cycles to get the pee smell out of them has been our experience. To answer the question, this past month we used disposable diapers most of the time this past month of July. Used cloth diapers once, and will know more once we get our water bill here next month.... but we already know that yes the use of disposable diapers does decrease our water bill, however in one way or another we will pay one way or the other....

[Bettypooh]

As costs go, when you figure in everything it's a toss-up The major differences in cost and effect are based on your location. For instance where water is scarce disposables are better, but where landfill space is scarce cloth is better. Being a coffee drinker my urine has a fairly heavy odor at times My solution is to thoroughly rinse them as soon as they come off, then soak them in the washer with soap until laundry time. Get some heavy rubber dishwashing gloves for the rinsing and rinse-squeeze (or twist-wring) at least 3 times before soaking. One sink of water will do for all rinsing as all you are doing is diluting the urine, not really removing it. Instead of the washer you can use a bucket for the soaking, WallyWorld has some nice colored 5 gallon ones with seperate lids you can get for about $10 total. The lids are tight when snapped so I just set mine on top and it still contains the odor. Though I haven't tried it, sun-drying on the clothesline is said to help with odors a lot Being what they are, diapers are going to have some odor involved. Sensitive noses can tell if there's a baby (or a cat) in the house when the door first opens no matter what you do, so if you're like this then consider that the average person isn't and make some allowance for yourself. With disposables, my bucket with half a box of baking powder dumped in the bottom does a fair job of odor control but there's a burst of odor on opening, though it dissapates quickly once closed again

[Loveable_guy]

It's hands down cheaper using cloth. As for getting the smell out have you tried hanging the wash out to dry? Not only will the sun help to whiten things the fresh air does wonders to freshen up diapers.

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

This should not be hard to figure out. just do the numbers. Tedious, but not hard. if a home ec person tells me something, granted it was 26 years ago but the principles are still the same, how can I argue with her? She probably knows the numbers better than I do

[Nat]

Washing of cloth diapers usually takes 2 to 3 cycles to get the pee smell out of them has been our experience. To answer the question, this past month we used disposable diapers most of the time this past month of July. Used cloth diapers once, and will know more once we get our water bill here next month.... but we already know that yes the use of disposable diapers does decrease our water bill, however in one way or another we will pay one way or the other....

[Nat]

It's hands down cheaper using cloth. As for getting the smell out have you tried hanging the wash out to dry? Not only will the sun help to whiten things the fresh air does wonders to freshen up diapers.

Sometimes my brother comes over and I don't want my diapers to be seen. I wish I had a private area to dry them.

[Nat]

This should not be hard to figure out. just do the numbers. Tedious, but not hard. if a home ec person tells me something, granted it was 26 years ago but the principles are still the same, how can I argue with her? She probably knows the numbers better than I do

I don't do the finances so I don't know our costs of water and sewer. l asked my husband about it last night and he didn't know either. I wonder if I should go two months in disposables fully and see how much cheaper our water and sewer is. In our apartment cloth was definitely (sp) cheaper because we weren't paying for water and sewer so it wasn't hard to figure out how much a month l would be spending on laundry and how much disposables would cost (according to a webpage) and our local diaper service. So using our own and washing them ourselves was the cheapest even if it meant spending more in laundry but the laundry bill was the cheapest. Now we live in a house and have to pay water and sewer, we have to see what is cheaper. I had never done the finances here. My parents and husband do.

[Bettypooh]

Initial cost of diapers and replacements as needed, water and sewer, electricity to run the extra wash loads, same for laundry detergent, wear and tear on the washing machine shortening it's useful lifespan, cost of clothesline or if you use a dryer the dryer fuel cost, extrac wear on the dryer, extra time spent dealing with cloth, pins and plastic panties and their replacements as they wear out, Um, I think that about covers cloth costs- someone will add anything I might have missed.

[Angela Bauer]

My own attitude is that if a person is happy wearing washable diapers, then do so if you have the time and can afford the costs. By the same token if your bliss is disposables, then wear those and do not worry about the cost.

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

Disposables have "post-use storage" that are incurred for decades and maybe centuries, and this should be considered a medical waste level bio-hazard to be dealt with properly just as cloth has "water and sewer". Then there is the added load put on landfills which shortens the amount of time they can accumulate material and need to be replaced. Also there is the cost of what happens when the bio-security breaks down and human e coli get into the water supply. Much of these expenses come from taxes that need to be paid locally or come from revenue-sharing by the states. These are hidden costs. Then comes the search for new landfill space and the usual NIMBY wrangling

[Angela Bauer]

Christine, both of us favor cloth diapers, so we have no dispute there.

[Rachel Emily]

Sometimes my brother comes over and I don't want my diapers to be seen. I wish I had a private area to dry them.

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

Christine, both of us favor cloth diapers, so we have no dispute there.

[Nat]

Yes I meant cost as in how much you spend on them. Do you pay more in water, sewer, electric total than you would with disposable diapers, or would it cost the same amount as much you would be spending on disposables. If it costs us just as much, disposables are better for everyone in our household.

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

As Bettypoo said. the water cost would depend where you are. If you are in this area the water is almost meaningless, we have 3 reswervoirs for about 100,000 population. 60 years ago, we had one for a population of about 150,000. I would think sewer fees are fixed and electricity is pretty standardized. Now the cost of disposal may go up as cities/towns opt to require more expensive bags as they do around here and who knows what the future holds

[drynot]

I know for a fact that disposables cost much more than cloth diapers where I live.

[Repaid1]

I just got introduced to these although they have been out a while I see. I have a friend that uses it and claims it's the next sliced bread Many reviews vary, some say it works above and beyond and others not so much. I am ordering one on Friday. I mean look at the positives, such as in the OP's case. Will do it's job a single load, no detergent, no hot water again, and rid of the smells...sounds like a quad win. And the initial investment will be recouped in a few months if it works as advertised. Check the reviews and testimonials on several sites and the variations of the units out there. This one is made by EdenPure which is one of the best portable heaters I ever bought.

[Baby Brian]

From my own experiences I've found this.

Cost alone; cloth and diaper covers are about 25-50% cheaper overall than disposables.

Environmental impact; pretty close to a wash. Disposables are bad for land fills, but growing the cotton for cloth is just as bad for the land since cotton really strips out minerals.

Ease of use; for most this is a no brainer. Disposables are much easier to use than having to care for cloth is.

It really comes down to whether or not the added cost of a disposable is worth the convenience. Personally I believe it is for day time use, but enough for night time use (since i need extra heavy padding/absorbency or I will leak).

[Rachel Emily]

From my own experiences I've found this.

Cost alone; cloth and diaper covers are about 25-50% cheaper overall than disposables.

Environmental impact; pretty close to a wash. Disposables are bad for land fills, but growing the cotton for cloth is just as bad for the land since cotton really strips out minerals.

Ease of use; for most this is a no brainer. Disposables are much easier to use than having to care for cloth is.

y cl

It really comes down to whether or not the added cost of a disposable is worth the convenience. Personally I believe it is for day time use, but enough for night time use (since i need extra heavy padding/absorbency or I will leak).

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

The argument from convenience could be made by the litterbugs who strew their garbage all over the place saying "I cannot be bothered with keeping it until I find a proper place. Let someone else take care of my mess". In this case, the full costs of that "convenince" is hidden so that the person who prefers the "convenience" is not aware of the full price of that over time. Today's convenience stands a good chance of being tomorrow's kick where and when it hurts the most, much like the withhokding tax so that you never see what you really pay until it is too late and you never grasp it fully. That too, was sold as a "convenience"

At no time prior to the late 1960's were desposable diapers ever to be used as an occasional convenience for things like travelling. The current conditions were a product of such prsoperity that we thought we had money to litterally throw away

These things do not magically disappear after use. They, and the bio-hazard they carry linger and accumulate and take up more and more space in landfills, the space for which is becoming a premium and who would be willing to pay to have all the ladnfills brought up to chemical and medical waste standards. That costs big money

Some "convenience

Convenience is but one card in the hand. TANSTAAFL

That bit about cotton sounds like "revisionist history". That is, a reach. I did not hear that was an insoluable or even major or even any problem 50, 40 or even 30 years ago, when grade school children routinely spent two weeks learning the cotton industry because cotton was such a large part of our lives. Are you telling me that we do not know how or why to rotate crops or replenish what has been depleted easily enough to make a go of it? You mean to tell me we have only started growing cotton 100 years ago?

Which is a more compelling argument: The way landfills are becoming a premium and the kind of landfills we need to deal properly with toxins and bio-hazards or the way cotton strips the land and the fact that we have been able to deal with that over time to make cotton a commercial success to the point where it is stll the material of choice for disposable first aid supplies, as well as trade with countries like India and Egypt who have been growing high-grade cotton for 1,000 years?

BTW: Rachel there is a cure for the leaks

[Bettypooh]

The high-yield cotton varieties grown today need a lot of fertilizers specifically designed for them, a scam being perpetrated on many types of crops by big business where the seeds are cheap but the rest is not And cotton does take a hard toll on the land, with at least thee years being needed for average land to recuperate from one year's crop. Pooreer soils take longer still to recover. Being from S.C., I do know a little bit about cotton, which up to my late childhood years still drove most of this state's economy

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

My statement about litterbugs refers to thsoe who put convenience ahead of long-term sound use of resources (in this case space), sacrificing long-term considerations to making things easy in the short term. That is, making convenience the end-all and be-all of their actions

The batteries and electronics that you talk about are toxin hazards, by "bio-hazard' I meant threats that are of a bioloical nature, specifically, viruses or bacteria. Also electronics waste are gradually being re-assigned to dumps that are designed for these kinds of toxins. One of these latter that is becoming less prominent are CRT picture tubes which are gradually being replaced by LEC/LED monitors

I think it was as part of the cotton industry that crop-rotation was first proposed as a way of getting use of fields that were made deficient in some nutrients and replenishing them. This is still the preferred method of restring fields to the ability to support the "main" crop without letting them go fallow and talking them out of the productive sphere. The secondary and tertiary crops are chosen for those properties that resotre the needed nutrients

[redneck diaper boy]

Diapers are a personal item. The best diaper is the one that works for the wearer. Around here, water and electricity are expensive. I don't wear cloth diapers because they may be less expensive. Cloth works better for me.