[ms_menardi]

Water is free, it comes from the sky.

energy is free, it comes from the sun.

cotton is free, it grows from the ground.

plastic is not free, there will never be more of it. I think that resolves the equation.

(this is an oversimplification obviously but I wanted to reframe it from "how much of our current resources does this action use" to "how much of our TOTAL resources does this action use")

[m4rtink]

Plastic is just hydrocarbos basically - hydrogen and carbon. You can totally synthetise it. Might just not be as cheap an convenient like making it from mined oil, at least initially.

[em-bee]

water is not entirely free. it has to be cleaned, which costs energy. energy is free, but access is still limited. likewise cotton also requires effort to produce.

i agree with your overall point though.

[nephihaha]

It depends where you are. The main problems are that a) we keep polluting water and b) most of the water is salty.

[em-bee]

exactly, i mean water after use. using water to create or clean diapers pollutes it, and because overall we use and pollute water faster than nature recycles it through rain we have to add our own cleaning mechanisms to keep up. that's fine, but it makes the water not totally free.