share: digg facebook twitter The brand brought on a revolution in baby care, obliterating safety pins, soaking pails and diaper delivery trucks. After the save-the-planet zeitgeist of two decades ago failed to produce a blockbuster comeback, reusables have become de rigueur in certain circles, and to some parents who lack money for disposables. The new cloth diapers are hardly a threat to the big guys in throwaways, but in crunchy enclaves like Portland, Ore., and Northampton, Mass., it's a rare parent worth his yoga mat who would dare consider disposables, at least out loud. Disposables have been around since at least 1935, primarily as a niche item for trips away from home, but they never broke through to overtake cloth until Pampers hit, tapping into the postwar fervor for all things new, convenient and timesaving — especially among women setting up house in suburbia. The green question is especially vexing as both sides bandy scientific studies involving so many variables that the Natural Resources Defense Council considers the issue a wash when it comes to disposables in a landfill versus reusables in the laundry. The flat cloths of old have been reinvented in prefolded, fitted, pocketed and all in one "systems" that offer breathability, expandability, leak control, Velcro, snaps and a three-armed fastener called a Snappi. "Even if there really are no indications that future generations of humans will be able to survive our mistakes, I can wash load after load of dirty diapers with some trite optimism," said cloth-user Thomas Chang, the stay-at-home dad to year-old Olive in Northampton. In Portland, 20-month-old Alexander's mom, Kris Vockler, went for disposables all day long after she worked out a metric carefully weighing the pros and cons — the big pro being she travels a lot and decided they were hassle-free when her son was along for the ride. In his enlightened western Massachusetts town, Chang notes that few day care centers support cloth, though that's changing.
Cloth Or Disposables? Half-century Debate Still On
Business National/International Headline List, San Antonio Express-News: Business
Tue, 04/12/2011 - 12:25pm
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