When one thinks of babies, a common image is a baby swaddled in disposable diapers, a $5.7 billion dollar industry. Recently, however, cloth diapers are taking the market by storm amongst eco-friendly, socially conscious consumers. The new cotton diapers hitting the market have velcro, buttons, and snaps instead of the old pins that would invariably pierce you every now and again. They also come with elastic around the openings (so you don't need to worry about messy spillage), as well as water-resistant covers made of soft merino wool, nylon or polyurethane laminate. Cost: $6-18.

The Real Diaper Association estimates that 27.4 billion disposable diapers are used in the US every year. According to research done by the Environmental Protection Agency (1998), this translates into over 3.4 million tons of waste filling our dumps. Such waste is problematic for our environment in the US, and even more so in the developing world as human waste often pollutes rivers and drinking water. As if these were not enough reasons to use eco-friendly diapers, the production of disposable diapers requires a significant amount of petroleum, chlorine, wood pulp and water (and we wonder why babies get rashes!).

So what are the most eco-friendly diapers out there? We recommend gDiapers found at Wholefoods or online. They are fashionable, washable and made with disposable inserts. See a nifty video here and buy gDiapers here.

(Click here to see the ecological breakdown differences between eco-friendly diapers and disposable diapers.)

Happy swaddling!

Tags:: Eco-friendly | Green | diapers | babies | Environment