Have You Ever Been "Outed" by Your Recycling Bin?

[Little Sherri]

Have any of you been "outed" by the recycling bin?

Luckily, most ABDL diapers don't come in decorated boxes; they tend to be plain, and to say very little, or, what's printed on them is in code. For example, my unopened case of Rearz Lil' Monsters says "LM 10" on the box, not "Adult Monster-Themed Plastic Baby Diapers Size 10". So when I collapse a case and fold it up into the recycling, I don't worry much about it. Indeed, my wife has given a couple of ex-diaper boxes to friends of ours. 

When I was a kid, the diapers I wore came in printed boxes with pictures of content babies on the front, no euphemisms employed, emblazoned with wording such as "Extra Large Disposable Diapers." However, critically, humanity had yet to start worrying about how much stuff we were burying in the ground, in the name of getting more stuff, so, those potentially-humiliating boxes were usually broken down and put into garbage bags or packed into a garbage can.  

However, this topic occurred to me today, when I was driving my daughter to school, and along the way, I saw a number of kids standing at the ends of their driveways with their moms or dads or grandparents, waiting for their school buses. On part of the route we take, it was recycling day, so there were blue bins and green organic bins at the ends of most of the driveways. We were behind a school bus, and had to wait for it to pick up some kids, and when I was looking around, I realized that one house we were in front of had the remains of a box of Cuties size 7's sitting on top of one of their bins, and that both kids standing next to it were of school age, as far as I could see. Further along, there were a couple of houses with pull-up boxes sitting at the curb, kids now already on the bus. 

My mind immediately went to how I imagine I would have felt, the end of my driveway as a kid, if a bus load of my classmates rolled up, and I was standing next to an empty Pampers box, or a Goodnites box (if they'd existed when I was a kid), knowing that anyone who knew me knew that we didn't have any babies in the house. I will reflect again on the sheer panic I sometimes felt when a friend came to the door unexpectedly (none of us had cell phones), and I had to dash up to my room and throw a blanket over the diaper box on the floor in my closet, before they came up to play. Or, worse, if I still had a diaper on under my pajamas, I'd open the door an inch, yell "Give me a sec!", and then slam it in their face and dash upstairs, while praying that my sister or my mom wouldn't open the door back up and say "How terribly rude, sorry about that, come on in..." 

More recently, I had the experience last winter of having a garbage can demolished by a snow plow, which scattered gloriously printed diapers all along an otherwise stark white ditch. I *think* I managed to pick most of them up before anyone from the neighbourhood happened by, but it was a close call. What if I'd been out? 

Have any of you ever been undone by your local refuse collection or recycling program? 

[diaperguy85]

My recycle bin? Nope!

My trash bin? Maybe!

Generally I put all the cardboard in a big, flattened stack either tied, taped or stuffed into another box. The only box I have ever gotten that was remotely diaper telling are the abena boxes. They have large bold markings on the sides that to the trained eye are kinda obvious. When I got them in, I was a little concerned, but then again, I wasn't expecting company anytime soon, so it wasn't too bad. Also they were inside the porch, so they were hard to see clearly from the sidewalk and road. When I get to toss those boxes, I'll probably turn them inside-out and stuff them in the middle of the stack, just to be certain!

My trash bin, might give me away sometimes. After a good, long, diapered weekend, my trash is kinda.... bulge-y? lol I bag each used diaper, then stuff them into a larger bag, tie it off, and them stuff that into a larger bag that gets tied up and then goes to the curb. What results is a funny, heavy, lumpy trash bag lol I'm sure the trashmen (they are men, I've seen them!! lol) have seen just about everything being thrown out, and even if they haven't I don't think they take notice and think "Got another lumpy diaper trash bag!" lol But it's still something to think about. I do worry sometimes if the skunks/racoons were to tear into the bags for some reason, the diapers would be exposed! But I don't think those critters would snoop around for stinky week+ old diapers.... but you never know....  

[ValentinesStuff]

For a period of time, the trailer park I live in had an operational garbage truck and did their own trash collection. I'm sure at some point the staff, or even my landlady who helped at times just might have noticed the large diapers in my trash. They do know I am single.

 

On a side note, one of my sisters is a nurse that has exclusively worked in nursing homes. She used to bring Attends boxes home to use for storage and hauling Christmas presents around. So several times I got to bring my Christmas haul home in an adult diaper box. 

[~Brian~]

@Little Sherri

My recycle bin: No because I don't recycle diapers and I don't put that into the recycling, and when we do box breakdown, all I do is bring it downstairs in our building to our box recycling toter.  my landlords take care of all of the boxes and all of the recycling using our recycling bins that are downstairs. this includes our food scraps bin.

My trash bin: no because where I live, we have our trash chute.  there are people that live in my building that are heck of a lot older than I am, And some of them may use incontinence products.  therefore, it is expected that people use incontinence products in a building such as this. when I get rid of my trash, I have special bags that I use for my disposal system. all I do is pull the bag down tie it off and throw it in the trash down the chute. 

Outed By Someone ELSE:  This is a heartfelt yes! For some reason I had some idiots that were getting after me for my transgressions a couple of times. what happened shouldn't have happened, and it was my responsibility to make sure it didn't happen, but I misunderstood what was going on, and asked the wrong person the wrong questions. this resulted in one of my support agencies basically outing meat everyone in my workplace, luckily it's a church and a nonprofit organization, and most of the people that are there don't mind one way or the other, because they understand my situation. the way it was done was totally inappropriate and unprofessional in the 1st place. not only that, but the person that wanted to speak to me decided to continue to be an idiot, threatened me with total service removal, And then in order to fix this I had to call someone else that was familiar with my situation to be able to get rid of these problems. I lost service for two weeks from this agency, and then, everything was fine for awhile and then they thought something was wrong, so this person called me up and was yelling at me on a Friday morning threatening me with calling my case manager, saying that I had done something inappropriate. I told this woman but she was fired, and did not call me again, and I will be going to the doctor within 15 minutes, and this person would no longer be involved in my care. I told her how unprofessional she was and the fact she didn't even care two cents about me or anyone else. This all started because I misunderstood something that happened, and word got back to her. I also asked her if she ever dealt with people with disabilities or incontinence. no surprise, she said of course we do everyday: I said, then why the hell are you giving me garbage because of my incontinence and making me feel bad? I told her that she did things that were totally unprofessional, And she was heartless and ruthless!

most of my problem was that I thought that someone would out me because of seeing boxes of diapers or diapers or trash. not in my case! I was outed by a support agency that should have kept their mouth shut and not made a big deal out of it. they weren't hired to be dealing with incontinence care, and I signed a contract understanding that, But when they end up blowing it out of proportion and not giving me a chance to speak, and I have to yell at the top of my lungs to get this person to leave me alone, there is a problem! I don't like to yell and I don't like to scream and I don't like to cause issue, because that is the worst thing that you can do! I always try to find the good in everything that goes on, but when you have a bad Apple and they just keep running it and running it, and they won't let you get a word at Edgewise, then you have to do something else. I fired that agency within two minutes, and I told my case manager that I was threatened by them! I also asked if they got called by them, and she said that there was no call! I don't have to worry about that ever happening again, but let me tell you that one shook me to the core! it's one thing for people to know whether you have boxes of diapers or what's going on, but it's quite another if what you are trying to do is to deal with incontinence and you have Asshats they wanna call you up and threaten you!

when I moved during the construction phase of where I'm living now into 2006, I had a bunch of boxes that were for Tena Products. I was moving from Washington apartments to North Barre Manor, which is about 2 to 3 miles down the road. I had boxes that I used when I moved in, and some of the boxes are never unpacked and I just stored. When I ended up moving back here to Washington, I ended up taking boxes that were the same type, So what I had to do was to market every box so I knew what was in it and where it belonged so that it would be easy to put where it needed to be. Because of where I live and who lives in my building, I don't think anybody would bat an eyelash if they saw diapers in the trash. that is a good thing!

My question is: has anybody ever been outed in such a ridiculous way as what happened to me? sure some of that was my fault, but when I apologize and try to set it right, and ask the right person the right question, somebody ended up getting after me again! that is why I am very very careful as to who knows what. The wrong person can cause a lot of trouble for the wrong reason, and that's no fun. I hope some day that in this world there will be people that won't be so scrupulous and be able to understand what it means when someone is incontinent, it doesn't mean that you go and broadcast it to the entire world. it's one thing to have boxes or product, it's quite another for somebody else to pick it up and run it like you're playing telephone: as I learned from this experience, no one was called my health agency, and no one knew anything about this, And luckily I was able to clear this up in a matter of minutes, and calm this person down. I was also informed that this person was out of line, and shouldn't have done any of the things that I told my case manager that happened. this person was fired anyway, so I don't have to deal with her, and this agency I no longer deal with in the first place.

Such as the life of a diaper wearer!

Brian

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

What's up Dox?

[2sail2]

AT first I thought you were talking the computer recycle bin.  One day, an email appeared with one year ago today photo of me wearing a pullup appeared.  Fortunately, it was my eyes only at that point.  But it made me realize I have yet taken time to figure out either to stop sync'ing photos or delete them.

[Little Sherri]

It's funny you say that, @2sail2, because while I was indeed thinking of my physical recycling bin, the virtual one has that potential as well. I have some pictures of diapers in my computer; not me wearing them, just the diapers themselves, because I did a couple of reviews where I wanted to include a photo of the diaper or compare dimensions with another product. I deleted the photos from the folder they were in when I was done, however, my computer likes to offer up "memories" from time to time, and every once in a while, a picture of a gloriously printed ABDL diaper shows up on my desktop, even thought I deleted it. Sometimes I use my computer hooked to the TV to look at sports or automotive clips on YouTube with my buddies, so I don't want a Rearz Mermaid Tale or something like that to suddenly appear on the 72 inch TV. 

[Kif]

Huh...that's a fair point! 

I've not exactly had it pointed out to me, but I stopped caring to order 'discrete' shipping from my supplier ages ago. Like...I'm in diapers, who cares if some lady is heaving some heavy box from the post office with a bunch of branded text on it? 

I also used to worry about taking my diapers out to the trash as well...the first few times I'd walk them out I found myself trying to hide these bulging bags behind me in casual (but really not so clever or subtle) ways. Eventually in a similar vein I realized nobody cared. So I stopped caring either. 

The only thing I *do* care about is if those bags tear open. It's a sanitary hazard, and embarrassing as heck. It happened once, and luckily nobody was around to watch swollen plastic bowling balls roll down the street. I've double checked my bags, since.

[~Brian~]

16 minutes ago, Kif said:

Huh...that's a fair point! 

I've not exactly had it pointed out to me, but I stopped caring to order 'discrete' shipping from my supplier ages ago. Like...I'm in diapers, who cares if some lady is heaving some heavy box from the post office with a bunch of branded text on it? 

I also used to worry about taking my diapers out to the trash as well...the first few times I'd walk them out I found myself trying to hide these bulging bags behind me in casual (but really not so clever or subtle) ways. Eventually in a similar vein I realized nobody cared. So I stopped caring either. 

@Kif

I think I've also gotten to the point where it really doesn't matter whether somebody knows that I'm getting a delivery or not. I live in a building with a bunch of people that are least 25 By now, And even if there were younger ones, were living in a building that was once considered for elderly and disabled,, and it still classified that way, so it would make sense that a building such as this wouldn't have a problem or shouldn't have a problem with people disposing of incontinence supplies in the trash cans or the chutes, and they shouldn't be worrying too much about what were throwing down the chutes, And the only time that would be a problem is if something should happen where there's a blockage in the chute, that may stop something that is put in it, which can be a problem, based on bags and other types of things I guess they were worried about that once, but for the same reason, no one really cares too much about what is being thrown into the bins or down the trash chute, unless there's something that let's go when it's in the shoot and the person that is cleaning it has to go in there and clean up the mess in the shoot itself or on the floor in the trash room. If something like that were to happen a few, someone from the maintenance staff may be reporting it to the housing authority's management would put out a notice that says something about what happened, so that we know what happened And then they would tell us what they want done. luckily for me, the bags I use for disposal are dark blue, and there in a late green very thin plastic bag that I tie off at either end, so there shouldn't be too much difficulty, but this plastic itself is thinner than a normal trash bag that you would use so this should not be a problem in the chute.

When it comes to deliveries of incontinence supplies, I rarely have a problem with these. most places that we deliver to us, no to deliver it to a particular place in the building, which is our mail table.  or they put it on the floor by the table, and then people come down to the table and look to see if there's anything on the table. If there is, then you would bring it up to your apartment and then take care of the unboxing chores there, or you would hold on to the box until you're able to empty it, and then get rid of the resulting empty box period since Northshore orders come in Discreet Boxes, I'm sure that that won't be a problem for me for me, and most people in the building know that North Shore does what North Shore does. if they're worried about it, I haven't seen it yet, because we have people that are older than I am and I'm 50 years old, and I'm sure they use incontinence pads or products like I do, so I'm not too worried.

Because I have accepted my situation, I'm no longer afraid of the obvious. I need the help I need, and I'm not afraid of it and I'm not ashamed of it. I'm able to move around and I'm able to do most things on my own, so that's important. I'm able to live on my own and able to function in that capacity doing everything that I want and making sure that everything that I take care of is taken care of. there's no reason why I should worry, unless somebody comes to me that knows that I'm actually using these products and says to me that they're causing a problem in the building. then and only then would I end up trying to deal with that situation in a very discrete manner talking to my landlords if necessary. luckily for me that has not happened So I'm not too worried about it

Like you, The one thing that I would not wanna have happen is having bags break open and diapers rolling down the ramps. in my case, what I do to stop that from happening So somebody doesn't actually see it happening in front of me, as I use the nor short disposal bags, putting the brief within it along with any wipes or anything that needs to go out Period from time because that garbage can is being used for bathroom type stuff I dump my briefs and the wipes and anything else that's in that can in a separate bag so that I can dispose of it like I would dispose of a dirty or used diaper. If I use these disposal bags from Northshore, they are dark dark blue, So no one is going to know what's inside of it, in their opaque, so no one can see in the bags. unless they know exactly what they're looking for, they won't be able to tell. The housing authority already knows that I use the product because I have to dispose of the product in the refuse, so the only thing that I had to make sure of was that the bags were not causing problems for them compactor mechanism and possibly get hung up and block the thing up. I was informed by our last maintenance director and our current maintenance director that that will not be an issue, and it has not been. As you have stated, I wouldn't wanna be catching these things and having them roll down the drive the driveway either, but I've had to do it myself picking them up and manually putting them in one at a time because the bag had disintegrated. That is why I have to be extra careful when there's a hole in the bag, and I'd rather have a hole in the bag once it's in the chute, rather than to have a bag break open and have a hole in it while I'm trying to bring it down to our 1st floor trash shoot, which is the only chute that has a downward facing ramp that has a wicked grade. if I go down this thing too fast and I'm not holding on to something what I'm trying to get rid of it like a trash bag or something like that, the thing will fall off my lap and I'll end up having to chase it down the hallway and bring it back up. this is why I had to be extra careful that the bags are disposed of are not extra heavy because otherwise it would take a little bit of strength to be able to lift it, then I would have to hold it, then I would have to dispose of what the heck I'm disposing of. so you have to be extra careful like you said. I also would not wanna have things rolling down the driveway or being made so everybody can see what's going on, but I've seen a lot of things in this building, and I'm sure there are people other than I that have seen things in this building, and as long as it doesn't violate the rules or the lease and it's not a safety violation or a health violation, I should be OK.

Brian

[2sail2]

On 1/16/2023 at 10:53 AM, Little Sherri said:

It's funny you say that, @2sail2, because while I was indeed thinking of my physical recycling bin, the virtual one has that potential as well. I have some pictures of diapers in my computer; not me wearing them, just the diapers themselves, because I did a couple of reviews where I wanted to include a photo of the diaper or compare dimensions with another product. I deleted the photos from the folder they were in when I was done, however, my computer likes to offer up "memories" from time to time, and every once in a while, a picture of a gloriously printed ABDL diaper shows up on my desktop, even thought I deleted it. Sometimes I use my computer hooked to the TV to look at sports or automotive clips on YouTube with my buddies, so I don't want a Rearz Mermaid Tale or something like that to suddenly appear on the 72 inch TV. 

I watched some adult baby video on YT on my computer and as my account is on the TV...my wife isn't around the tv much, so I was able to delete history.  I need to be ready to say diaper research reasons.

Actually, my dad walked in years ago on me...I think I had DD and / or  had some photos on the screen.  I reached for the power off button, but we know power off takes time.  He never said anything.

[bedwettersteve]

Yes with my trash bin a few times animals got in my trash bin and tore open the trash bags that had my wet disposable diapers and ended up on lawn

[WBxx]

Have any of you been "outed" by the recycling bin?

Not a concern because I manually shred empty diaper boxes and place in the trash with the rest of our garbage. 

But I worry that a “diaper savvy” neighbor will spot newly delivered boxes sitting on the front stoop.  Try to minimize stoop time, but still …..

[Moochie]

I haven't been discovered by the contents of my trash, but I will say that by trash day my trash smells like wet diapers, even though I wrap the soiled diaper in plastic bags.

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

Ahhh! the joys of being self-contained. No telltale packaging or items in the trash. No obscene long-term costs

[Little Sherri]

8 hours ago, Little BabyDoll Christine said:

No obscene long-term costs

I'd imagine you've done an analysis on this, so I'd be curious to hear the results. I have not done any math on this from a household perspective, but I did some work way back in my career than tangentially intersected with the LTC sector, and over there, in the 1990's and early 2000's, they were undergoing a paradigm shift regarding disposable versus cloth diapers, one that had washed over the civilian population two decades earlier. Most of those institutions at one time had a few to several giant laundry machines in their basements - equipment the size of minivans - that were used to launder and dry reusable diapers. The had legions of employees and used thousands of dollars in chemicals, thousands of gallons of water, and untold joules of energy, to blast grandma & grandpa's pin, snap or Velcro-on knickers back to passably white. However, the disposable revolution was underway, and they were obsoleting the giant machines and the army that fed them, in favour of diapers that could be tossed out like tissue paper (and in some cases, that held about as much as tissue paper). 

The reasoning behind this was that, once the machines, the labour, the water, the chemicals, the energy, and the infection control issues that could arise if the first 6 things didn't all come together perfectly, were factored in, washing hundreds of pounds of diapers a day was actually more expensive than using disposables. The metrics on that differ somewhat if you can, for example, use the sun to dry them, rather than gas or electricity, and if your water comes from a well, rather than being metered into your house at $X per cubic metre. Also, in a household setting, most people don't factor in a dollar value for their time, whereas in an institutional setting, labour is actually the most expensive line item, typically. But human time is human time - we all only get so much of it, unless handling diapers brings you joy, in which case, that in itself is the answer - then, it doesn't have to make economic sense, anymore than raising ferrets, touring Egypt, or paper mache has to make economic sense to be worth doing. 

But, if we are talking purely dollars and cents, I don't know if disposables are more expensive or not, at a household level. If you're paying for water, soap, bleach, energy, wear & tear on machines, and if you place a dollar value on your time... I'm not sure. 

I guess a corollary argument would be, what price can you put on the environment, for example, but, there again, it depends... energy, chemicals, water consumption... all these things impact the environment. And are the disposables being thrown down a hole and buried? Are they being burned for heat in a cogeneration plant that then produces electricity? Are the inner linings being composted and the plastic shells being melted and extruded as outdoor furniture? 

I don't have the answers, I just know that it's not simple to arrive at them. 

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

One of the fiew good things Rosalie did while here was provide that analysis, which I have saved and will post here. It would be intuitive that cloth diapers and rubber panties would be less costly over time than replacing the whole awwembly. The major proportion of the cost would be on the front end. The longer you kept the items the more the costs would be amortized. The BabyDoll cost significantly less than buying the pre-made cloth diaper and they lasted me 15 years so far. I am just starting my third set of panties since 2009, with the second having lasted 10 years, I do change the innermost panties with the diaper and have over a dozen changes. If you had a normal layette, it would be a dozen diapers and 4 panties. I use the DPF specifications of 1 snap on panty over which is a pul-on so mine, by my option, would be more expensive. However I am still on my first set of cloth diapers created in 2009. The panties I started with at that time were already a few years old and lasted 5 more years. I expact this third set of snap-ons to last about 10 years and the diapers to last another 5 or so at a usage rate of about 6 per week. What I saved on the diapers, I probably spent on the panties. I clean the panties when I bathe and use a HE washing machine I am thinking of adding a booster to the diaper, which will be homemade and pretty much guarantee a full 12 hours per change while not adding much to the care. The more you use them, the more the intial cost is amortized. Also, the throw-away that would be analogous to the BabyDoll would be on the high end. I may start wearing every night which would be 7 diapers and panties as well as the twice weekly during the day which would be 9 per week. However, I am exceptional on the high end. I wonder what it would cost to have the BabyDoll diaper mass-produced and available for purchase, with each being 4 or 5 layers of fabric throughout. I used DSQ prefolds and that was 15 years go

Here is the chart

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

Now, as to the factors: They had to be aligned perfectly, as you said. Did you every see anything done perfectly in this world? ONe of those factors is "infection control". Medical waste require special, highy-performance disposal not really available to most persons Also, this pertained to "washing humdreds of pounds of diapers per day". That only pertains to institutions of considerable size. Have you ever seen medical/institutional throw-aways? I have had a bit of experience with them and eww.. Like most military gear, these are designed to do one thing well and in a supportive system (all you guys who want a full mil-spec AR-15 better acquire the skills of an armorer, otherwise you will have more trouble with it than it is worth. It was made to be adjustable in ways that the end user does not touch so that it can be set to the needs of the specific missions). The institutional disposable is UUUUGLEEEE and cheap, at its best in a supportive "eco-system". This is not available outside the institutional setting. So anything like the Pampers that you wore in the 1970's and '80's will cost an arm and a leg as will a Megamax, which would be the equivalant of a doubled BabyDoll; 16 to 25 hrs between changes. Now, it should be said that the BabyDoll was derived from a diaper that was not a baby doaper, but one made for a bedwetter and would serve between the ages of 5 and 10 and was not just for bedwetting. It was homemade. It was also used on long trips (this was before the Interstate system with its mile-a-minute speeds, when a trip to Boston took two hours) and when you were hosting a group of little girls two or more of who could not hold it realiably for two hours and would keep the bathroom busy all afternoon. "Civilian" use is very different from institutional use. and things have changed since the parameters of instituional use were laid out, especially environmental laws and expectation over the last 30 years. Also, in 1988, I was talking with a Home Ec social worker and she said two things. first, rubber panties should be put over throw-aways and the state should not be subsidizing throw-aways as they were more expensive than reusable and therefore a waste of finite funds. My insurance covers re-usables, which I can just imagine; probably very bare-bones with panties made of grainy material (PUL is relatively expensive)

So the economic superiority of re-usable diapers in non-institutional settings is no secret and the institutional model is a specialized beast sold in job lots by the gross of cases either to huge institutions or to consortia of small to medium size institutions with support systems

[Little Sherri]

I couldn't open the jpg for some reason. But, certainly, many of the truths that apply to institutional settings do not translate on a household scale. In terms of water, energy and chemicals, there are so many variables that it's nearly impossible to come up with a one-size-fits-all rule of thumb for this. I'm coming up with $1 to $3 a load, with the cost of energy being the most significant variable. If you use electricity to run your dryer and live where energy costs are a factor in your life, use $3. If you dry your diapers in the sun and heat your water with gas, use $1. If you don't have HE equipment, maybe add 35%. 

For me, at $3 a load... I'd probably be wearing two cloth diaper sets a day, two panties, sometimes throwing a third set in there just because I'm not going to go out on the town in a stale, 50% capacity cloth diaper, even if it has a few more hours of life in it. Let's say 18 diaper changes a week. That would be two loads of laundry for me, realistically - it isn't wise to run diapers in huge loads when they've been sitting for a week, you'll probably end up having to run them again in any case. So, $6 a week... I easily use $6 a day worth of disposables. BUT.... what's my time worth? Let's say I use $50 a week worth of disposables... how long does it take me to do two dedicated loads of laundry, schlepping the diapers up and down, from machine to machine, inevitably turning the dryer on again because they never get completely dry the first time through, folding, putting them away, hang-drying the panties because I don't want them beat up in the dryer... I could easily spend at least a couple of hours a week on that, and possibly more. Do I make more than $25 an hour at my job? Yes. So for me, I'm not sure the reusables win, although they are demonstrably less expensive, if you take my labour out of the equation. 

A further factor is the possibility that I might end up divorced if I started up a supply chain in my house that processed soggy cloth diapers on any kind of scale, and I'd have to upsize my wardrobe (again) to wear them... your mileage may vary, however. 

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

At $3 a load. It depends what the load size is. For me it is 6 as the panties get cleaned up with me. so 6 into 3.00 or 300 cents comes out to $0.50 apiece. It is well-known that the major cost is up front. For a throw-away there are two other things that add to the cost. 1 waste: defective  products that cannot be used and "post-consumer storage" borne by the taxpayer for something that just sits there and can spread disease sonce ordianry landfills are not up to the proper levels of containment for fecal matter also, there is the matter of improper disposal so that animals get at them and spread the filth

Back to cloth, the more each is used, the more the cost is amortized down. That $0.50 is FAR less than the cost of an equivalent throw-away. Now, if I used 10 per load, the cost would be $0.30

. I think 8 would be the limit since the BabyDoll is a heavyweight diaper. I do not know what my cost per load is since I use an HE washer and a gas dryer. Being a heavyweight diaper, the BabyDoll would notr be down there with the Attends or Depends or Tena, It might be in there with the Bellissimo or other Bambino or ABU. Just what other cloth diapers cost I do not know

However, I do have the advice, albeit 35 years old, from a Home Economics social worker. I do not see a reason to think that the relative costs; costs as percentage of the whole operation,  have changed. She was dealing in the baby diaper world

[tuffy]

To answer the OP, I've never had any issues with my disposables being discovered in the trash. Where I live, we use rather large wheelie bins for our trash and I always put my disposables in large black trash bags.

 

On 3/13/2024 at 8:31 PM, Little BabyDoll Christine said:

At $3 a load. It depends what the load size is

Since I've switched to cloth, I've been curious about my laundry costs for quite a while, so I've been collecting some data, though some is just an educated guess. I'll post more detailed breakdown in the Cloth Diaper section, but my costs are somewhere around $1.20 a load for 10 diapers (Babykins 10500) plus a few added inserts. That includes the electricity, water, natural gas and detergent and is about what I use in 2 days. So, my individual diaper cost is about 12 cents each. I've had the current batch of diapers since 2018 and they cost about $25 each. I haven't replaced the velcro yet, but I will soon and I'm still using the same 4 pairs of water proof pants (Babykins 10300NT) I bought at the same time.