[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