[the_gastropod]

I think as a general rule: a reusable thing is more environmentally friendly than a single-use thing (especially when the reuse cycles are high). Yes, there are exceptions. But you’ve got the bizarre case to make here, if you want to suggest single-use diapers (that also use water, require transportation, are fabricated, packaged, etc.) are a more efficient use of resources.

[xbryanx]

My primary point is that it's not a slam dunk for either side. Nothing's obvious about the "impact" here. I you're interested in picking a product based on its environmental impact, there are going to be many factors to consider. Just peruse this 200 page report from the UK government on the subject:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7c4096ed915...

[sfpotter]

This study has serious methodological issues. I would encourage you to carefully peruse it yourself before citing. This is far from the only issue, but the fact that someone who works at Procter and Gamble is on the study's advisory board is... fun.

[s1artibartfast]

I don't think it's that crazy. It's fairly well documented that a reusable cloth shopping bag has a break even with plastic shopping bags at around a 100-200 reuses, something most people won't reach.

With diapers, you have wash water, electricity, and a gas dryer in the mix.

Then you have people in this thread talking about services to pickup and wash them for you. How many trips car trips is that- 2 a week?

[the_gastropod]

1. Id guess an average cloth diaper gets reused more than 100x

2. Think about the mass differences you’re comparing here. A standard plastic grocery bag is about 5 grams of material. A standard cloth bag is around 250. Cloth vs disposable diapers are approximately the same amount of material. This is the “gotcha, vegan! Iceberg lettuce is less efficient on a CO2 per calorie basis than beef! Eat more steak to be greener” type of argument.

3. You’re doing the thing contrarians often do of only counting one side of the ledger, while hand waving away the other. Disposable diapers require water, tree growing, tree cutting, tree transport, tree processing, bleaching, transport, packaging, product transport, disposal transport, disposal processing, etc etc. for each time a diaper is used. Really think about the full cradle-to-grave cycle of these things. Reusables must be washed, yes. But they, importantly, don’t require any of the other steps, which is, y’know, extremely significant. It’s not even remotely plausible single-use diapers are more resourceful than cloth ones.

[s1artibartfast]

I think it's plausible that cloth diapers are worse per use than disposable ones due to the mass industrialization of manufacture and resource intensity of cleaning.

You are right that we have to look at the full breakdown of the cradle to grave resource cost.

A washer and dry cycle is about 5 kilowatt hours, which is about the average household energy consumption in China or twice that in India.

Financially, in California it's about $3 per wash for power before accounting for water, soap, ect.

Let's say you got 10 diapers per day and washing every 2 days. That's 15 cents and 250 watt hours per diaper use.

American use a lot of electricity, so washing diapers would be about a 10% household increase

[sfpotter]

Cloth shopping bags are a really bad comparison here.

Some things working in favor of cloth diapers here are general greening of the grid, mitigating issues with electricity consumption.

Beyond that, line drying diapers works very well and even preserves the life of the diapers.

Cloth diapers hold their value extremely well and can easily be bought/sold/given away on sites like OfferUp or groups like Buy Nothing.

ALso, "2 car trips per week": do you have no idea how this works? No diaper service in their right mind would send out cars to make bespoke trips to individuals. They're done using a big truck on a schedule to amortize the cost of pick up and drop off as much as possible.

[tshaddox]

But there are lots of exceptions, right? Like a huge bunch of medical equipment where cleaning the thing to make it safe for reuse would be both more expensive and worse for the environment than single-use versions.

[markdown]

In many parts of the world they throw them in a basin of water and laundry detergent, let them soak for a bit, then hand wash them. No medical equipment necessary.

Of course if you have a washing machine you just launder them like any other item of clothing.

[thatfrenchguy]

Eh, you have to wash poop off them in a washer at high temps, so it’s a bit harder to compute. IIRC if you use the dryer it’s a wash: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7c4096ed915...

[sfpotter]

This study has issues. Take a closer look at it. See my other comment on here responding to someone else who linked to it.