My experience with gDiapers

A major decision for us when we had Avalon was whether we were going to use cloth or disposable diapers. Mainly at issue was the environmental impact of the two, although skin care, cost, and convenience were also important. In researching the environmental impact, it turns out that either cloth or disposable can come out ahead depending on the environmental costs due to landfill waste and water used for laundry. Unfortunately, nobody knows these costs and therefore there is no conclusive victor in environmental impact of cloth vs disposable by my reading. As a side note, in terms of economic cost, cloth wins only if you value your time at less than $5/hr.



A compromise in this debate is gDiapers. These diapers (shown in the picture) have three layers. The `little g' pants (outer layer) are a colorful cloth with Velcro straps to keep the diaper on. The next layer is a breathable but waterproof polyurethane coated nylon liner which snaps into the pants. The final layer is the actual diaper which has two parts: 1) a water resistant, breathable outer material and 2) a super absorbent material on the inside. This diaper layer can be flushed, tossed, or put in a compost.

My parents gave us a starter pack of these gDiapers which includes 2 pants with liners and 10 diapers. The first thing that you will notice is that the diaper is bulky. Where disposable or cloth diapers just have the diaper, these gDiapers also have the liner and pants. In terms of function, I would score gDiapers equally as good as disposables. The interesting part is flushing the diaper. The process for this is to rip the diaper up such that the water can actually get to the super absorbent material inside. Once it does the diaper is easily flushed. This was a pretty easy process and I would probably call it a wash between having to take disposable diapers out to the trash and this flushing process. But, none of the 10 gDiapers we had were dirty, only wet. So it may be more of an ordeal dealing with dirty diapers.

My main problem with gDiapers is the cost. Once you have purchased the starter pack, diapers themselves are $0.33/diaper compared with about $0.20/diaper for disposables. Personally I believe prices for disposal and for water use are too low since they do not capture the environmental cost. Therefore with appropriate prices, I think that gDiapers could be competitively priced. Btw, for those interested, here is a blog that discusses water issues, especially pricing.