In my ongoing effort to reduce the amount of garbage our family produces, I finally got around to buying some of the PC cloth shopping bags. They seem like a good idea, although I have to say, I can’t watch the TV ads for them (“We’re saving the world! One bag at a time!”) without feeling a little jaded, like, there must be something in it for them, it just can’t all be this simple. Can it?
Anyway, our massive weekly grocery shopping trips usually result in us getting between 10 and 15 plastic bags. We actually use these bags around here for our other garbage and diaper disposal, so it’s not like we’re taking tons of empty bags and just chucking them.* But I figured we could probably make the house run on fewer plastic garbage bags (because we’re cutting back on garbage! See how it all fits together?), so I thought I’d buy just three of the cloth bags. Then, on each grocery trip we’d be doing something small, at least, and we’d still get a few plastic bags for home use, too.
It turns out that the cloth bags are both way bigger than the plastic bags, and way tougher, so they can hold at least two plastic bags worth of goods. Two giant 4 litre bags of milk can go in one cloth bag! How cool is that? No matter how heavy the clerks fill them, I can still lift them, too, because the straps are soft and gentle and don’t cut your hand in half like a plastic bag with milk in it. Oh, how I shudder thinking back to all those long, long trips home from the grocery store as a carless student, six bags in each hand, slowly losing all feeling and circulation. Eeek.
So now, on our weekly shopping trips, our plastic use has been pretty severely cut back. So far we have plenty of plastic kicking around so that’s not a concern, and using the cloth bags has made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. In fact, I think I should just carry one around with me everywhere, and use it at the mall, or at the bookstore, or at the Zellers. Why not? I could single-handedly save the world! Anyway, I recommend them.
In other waste-reduction news, I’ve still been too chicken to make the switch to cloth diapers, but I have my eye on these as an alternative. They’re called gDiapers (not “G Diapers,” as I originally thought, but “g’Diapers,” like “g’Day,” because they are from Australia). They have an outer plastic liner like cloth, but inside, you use a flushable liner — it kind of looks like a big maxipad. When the liner is dirty, you pop it out and snap in a clean one, easy breezy.
Then you take the dirty liner, break it into smaller pieces, and flush it down the toilet. Brilliant! Not only does this keep a lot of crap out of our landfills, it sends the poop to a treatment plant where it can be properly handled — poo from disposable diapers is a major threat to ground water contamination.
And there I go talking about poop again.
Poopy diapers must always be flushed, but the pee ones can actually be composted or, if desperate, thrown away — they will break down to nothing within 120 days. How cool is that?
The only thing that prevents me from switching over right this second is that they are not available in Canada yet. You can order them online from their website but the shipping is crippling — more than the cost of the diapers themselves. Already they are more expensive than disposables, but not to the point where I wouldn’t pay it…but with the shipping included, they become financially infeasible. Apparently they will try to roll them into Canada sometime this coming year so I’ll be keeping an eye out.
* Plastic bags are not blue-box recyclable in Ottawa, although you can return them to some grocery stores for recycling.
TurtleHead 
Man, those g’Diapers sound awesome. Hopefully they make their way to Canada soon!
A few clothing stores have started giving out free reusable bags instead of plastic ones, if you spend enough. They’re not cloth like the PC bags but are that tarp-like material. I have a big one now from RW and a smaller one from La Senza. I’m going to make a good effort to take these bags out when I do mall shoppping. Although I can reuse grocery bags, I find clothing store bags mostly go to waste. Such a shame.
Great idea. I was somewhere recently…I think maybe Chapters or Walmart? …where they were selling cloth-type bags for $1 in a similar type ploy. I think it’s a great idea.
I used to carry around an enormous diaper bag so I could at least put small items in there with no bag, but now I carry a much-more-chic one that is stuffed to the brim, so we’ve had a lot of waste bags around here from stores, too. I vow to do better!
Hi, my name is Kim and my husband and I are the founders of gDiapers. It is great you are looking for ways to reduce your footprint on the earth and we would love to be a part of it!
I just wanted to let you know that we just launched in BC and are moving East as fast as we can 🙂 You will be able to find us in any of the local natural grocery stores (Whole Foods, Capers, co-ops etc.). If you have any questions once you get your hands on a pair, feel free to email or call us. We always love talking to customers!
All the best,
Kim
ps. You were actually right the first time in that they are g – diapers. The ‘g” is for green, gorgeous, gentle, global, grassroots, genuine….
That’s what we do. We RARELY use disposable diapers. And even the daycare is keen to use cloth on MiniMe. I’ve heard of gDiapers (one of my mommy friends got some from the states), they look great, but why not just go all cloth if you really want to make a difference? It really isn’t as tough as it seem (it might be an adjustment at first, though). And some of the diaper covers are way cute. And by having a diaper service, that means no self-laundering of the diapers (which in my mind is the biggest reason people don’t use cloth).
Geesh. I haven’t been on LJ in AGES. Thank goodness for a day off work and for being able to send the little one to daycare!
Oh, you use cloth? Excellent! We’ve been flirting with the idea for a while now but I have a great fear of the unknown. I need someone to tell me that it’s all okay!
Here are some questions/concerns I have that are still holding me back…
* the Wee One has turned into a terrible sleeper — we are up with her between four and six times a night now. I’m afraid I won’t be able to let her “cry it out” if I’m worried all the time that her diaper is wet and chafing, or worse, wet and leaking. How have you found cloth to stand up to nighttimes? Do you worry at all about him being in a wet diaper all night?
* I read that if you are using cloth with a service, you aren’t allowed to use “barrier” creams, like vaseline or zincofax, because they stain. Is this true? I would think that I would want to use these more (we use them occasionally for the Wee One) with cloth…so I don’t get it.
* Do you have to rinse the poopy ones? Not that I mind that much, I’m just curious.
* Speaking of poopy ones, what do you use for wipes, and what do you do with the wipes? We currently use disposable wipes and wrap them up in the diaper to throw them away. For poops (especially Gal Smiley’s, she still prefers a pull-up for pooping), we use flushable wipes and put them directly into the toilet while changing the diaper/pullup in the bathroom. Is this what you do? Or do you use cloth wipes, too?
* what do you do if you have to change a diaper, especially a poopy one, out in public? Do you put on a disposible if you know you are going to be out all day? Or do you just wrap it up in a plastic bag and bring it on home?
Anything else you have to add or offer…I’m interested in hearing!
1. We find the cloth diapers hold just as well as the plastic overnight. Some people double-diaper with cloth (i.e. use two in the diaper cover) at night. Others we know just use plastic overnight. We just use one cloth — we’ve found it’s all about the fit of the diaper cover. Ouch about the lack of sleeping, been there, done that, still doing it.
2. We can use any creams we want, no restrictions from our service. Not sure about other services. We don’t always use creams (since with cloth they are less likely to get rashes), but we’ve used various types of creams with no issues and no complaints from the service and I’ve never read anywhere in their lit that we can’t use creams.
3. No rinsing or soaking of poopy diapers. Just hang over toilet and let things fall out, whatever is left just fold up into diaper and put into diaper pail (the diaperpail has nothing in it but a liner bag and a filter on top). MiniMe quite often had runny stools when he was younger (sorry, I hate talking about this sort of thing, but since you asked…) and we did exactly that with no complaints from the service. One thing we’ve started doing is using flushable (i think they might also be biodegradable) diaper liners. They are like a dryer sheet that goes between baby and diaper so all the solids can get flushed. I think this is more useful if you wash your own, but we find for the daycare it’s easier for them (otherwise they might send EVERYTHING home in the diaper, which would also be fine).
4. We just use regular wipes and put them in the garbage. I figure I’m doing my part by using cloth. And I really don’t want to have to wash anything more than the diaper covers. What brand are the flushable wipes? I don’t know if I’ve seen them.
5. Outside of the house is a matter of preference. I used to use mostly disposable when we were out, but then got into the habit of using cloth all the time since we were out of the house quite a lot. And now I pretty much always use cloth everywhere, even when we went on a weekend trip to MiniMe’s great-grandma’s house. You can buy waterproof bags. I have two. One bigger one for the change of clothes and clean diapers and covers and one smaller bag for the dirty diapers and covers. Yes, it’s more to carry around and the load gets heavier as the day goes on vs. lighter, but I managed (and I mostly carried the little boy in a carrier vs. using a stroller when we went out of our neighbourhood). I don’t think I ever carried more than three diapers and that would last for an entire day out (i.e. 11-4).
More to be posted….
What else. My diaper service is called Comfy Cotton. There are a few different brands of diaper covers on the market. Since MiniMe (and I suspect Wee One) is long and lean, you might prefer the Bummis Super Brite:
http://www.bummis.com/en/Products/Covers/SuperBrite.html (aren’t they cute?). They have an extra gusset around the legs to prevent leaks that are common with skinny legs. We have these on plain white since our service sells them at a discount. The other brand for skinny babies that we like is Motherease Rikki wrap:
http://www.mother-ease.com/database/scripts/store_products.pl?TopCat=4&SecCat=20&SID=ac3355e2be141e574d7b516e23274e94&Loc=CA
They come in fun patterns, but are more expensive than the Bummis Super Brite.
The only work you really have to do is wash the covers when they get soiled or start to smell (we have 8 covers so we can have a bunch at the daycare and some here and not have to wash them every day — I’ve done fine with 4, but 6 is ideal for just at home use). The covers run from $9-$20. Another brand, they are Canadian, made in Guelph, is Sagemama. They have snaps vs. velcro and are very adjustable, just a bit more expensive. But come in nice colours.
Our service is approx $15/week. And to get 10 more diapers it’s $1 more/week. There are two different sizes of “prefolds” (that’s prob the type of diaper all services use), our service gives more of the little ones for the same price because you use more, but when they baby gets into the larger size you get less since you tend to use less (we had to go up to the large size early to fill the gaps since MiniMe is so skinny).
Do you have a cloth diaper store in Ottawa? I would suggest you start there to find out more (even if you decide to go with a service). There is a great store in Toronto called Diaper-Eze in High Park that tell you all about cloth diapers. They even have a changing area set up with a doll so you can try them out.
The last thing is you will have to experiment with different folding techniques until you find one that works for you. The bonus is you get to use all your lost origami skills.
Let me know if you have other questions. It’s not as daunting as it sounds. There is a learning curve, but so far it’s worth it. And the bonus is that cloth-diapered kids tend to be potty trained sooner since they can feel the wetness. We’ll see if that’s true! I sure hope so. I’m hoping that we can continue to use cloth until he’s potty trained. There are lots of temptations to stop, but we haven’t so far.
One last thing, the downside to a diaper service is they come only once a week, so you have to store the dirty diapers for a week, they do start to smell even with the filter on the diaper pail.