Wednesday, August 10, 2011

From Birth to Potty: What 5000 Disposable Diapers per Child Looks Like




Credit Notes: I tried for a long time to find a true "image credit" for this picture as I've been seeing it on many forums & Facebook feeds, but I couldn't find the original source.  If you know where it has come from or who owns the rights to it, please let me know so I can give proper credit.  Thank you!

20 comments:

  1. ummmm, WOW! That is just insane! That gives me some serious guilt over the fact that my son never wore cloth, my first daughter didn't switch over until she was 2 and my second daughter was 1. I guess some is better than nothing.

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  3. We have been doing cloth since our little one was born, and we are so glad we did it. It isnt as much wrk as we thought it would be, and it is a cleaner alternative for our little one.

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  4. Someone should also make a pile of dollar bills to show how many are wasted by using disposable. Then have a kid sitting on that pile of money, with a caption about a college fund.

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  5. Beth, what a totally great point. I think the pile of money would be even larger than the pile of diapers! :O

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  6. Another great photo would be of the chemicals they use in containers as to how much is being used for all of these...

    Nev

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  7. There should be flies or gnats in the picture too. Before we started cloth there was always bugs flying around the can with the diapers in it.

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  8. wow... thats crazy and disgusting. It took us till DD was about 9 months to switch to cloth, and I am so glad that we did. I dont think people realize that we wont being to survive without this planet... and if we keep treating it the way we are, it wont be here to support us anymore.
    (sorry about the mis-post earlier. I meant to say "it took us" not "it took u". I felt so bad when my husband told me it read that way!)

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  9. Scary!!!

    Maggie
    www.tootsntots.com

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  10. W-O-W! I wonder if the disposable diaper companies have found a way to make them biodegradable yet.

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  11. I posted this on my FB so my friends could see!

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  12. Anon, some nappies are advertised as biodegradable but they have to be PROPERLY disposed of in a compost - you cant just chuck em in the bin.

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  13. Thats shocking!! Im just in the process of making all of our cloth nappies for our bubba who is due anytime now :) and after listening to some stories and my mum - im gonna try cloth wipes at home too. My Partner and i also decided just for fun to roughly put away each week what we would spend if we were to use disposables into our trust fund for our baby :)

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  14. It's clearly a photoshopped picture, I have to wonder what the basis is behind it for claiming this is what 5000 diapers looks like. I am quite surprised at how small the pile is,

    susie ;)

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  15. Ewww! Thanks for sharing! More ppl ought to see this!! I have been cloth diapering my baby girl since birth. I wish I would have done so with my first two but had no idea people still used cloth!

    New follower! I'd love for you to follow my green blog :)
    http://green-mama-jama.blogspot.com/

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  16. I did a reverse image search and found a secondary source giving credit to the primary (http://www.ecoaction.com.au/category.php?id=52). It appears the baby may have been photoshopped into the original. Anyway, the University of Surrey are apparently the owners of the image so just thought I'd pass the info on :-)

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  17. Perhaps someone could also show how much coal fired electricity was used to wash 5000 (uses) diapers, and how many lbs of laundry detergent etc and how many gallons of fresh, pure water was used. After all, fresh pure water is at a premium. There are trade offs but it is not always easy...

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  18. Donna, there is also a lot of fresh pure water, and coal fired electricity wasted to make a disposable diaper, not to mention the oil, trees etc. At least the water used to wash the cloth diapers can be recycled and turned back into clean drinking water either by nature if you have a septic system or if you have city water your municipality does it at their water treatment site. And washing diapers doesn't take a lot of detergent either. You use less than you do to wash your cloths. Typically 1tbs to 1/8 tsp if you have really soft water.

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  19. Donna, I wash used cloth diaper daily along with dirty clothes. Surprisingly we just wash once (with washing machine) like usual, with less detergent. So no wasted water in my opinion :)

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