Cloth Diapering (and other laundry) Water Usage

I just realized something. People often mention the environmental impact of washing diapers, especially when comparing the environmental impact of cloth diapers versus disposables. "All those loads of laundry!" They say. Well, let's say you wash a load of diapers every other day. That's about 60 gallons, maybe a bit more or less depending on if you prewash, etc. A high efficiency machine probably takes less.  

Now, think about using the toilet. Each flush is 3.5 gallons if you have a high efficiency toilet. An average person uses the toilet 6-7 times per day. Let's round that up to 8 for potty trained kids. 8 x 3.5 is 28 gallons. That's in one day. Two days of potty usage is 56 gallons. It takes almost just as much water to flush the toilet than it does to wash the diapers!

This really stunned me. Obviously, the people complaining about the environmental impact of that water (not talking about the electricity to heat it), really should stop complaining because it works out to be about as much as them using the toilet (because I'm pretty sure the people saying we should use disposables because they require less water, are not people saving their pee in buckets to water their plants, or letting the yellow "mellow" and only flushing the "brown," or using composting toilets, etc).

This also makes me wonder about ways in which we can reduce the amount of water--and electricity--to wash diapers and other laundry.

(1) Hang drying clothes to dry, rather than running the dryer.

(2) Using flat diapers, rather than prefolds or other inserts, because they come clean easier and don't require as much washing. I seriously have a really hard time keeping diapers free from ammonia build up, and the inserts are the first to get it.

(3) Using flat diapers, rather than prefold or other inserts, because they DRY a lot faster. If you have to use the dryer, they reduce the drying time a lot. And, if you only have a short amount of good drying weather due to your climate, they can actually dry outside in time (for instance, during a lot of the year, the sun set behind my trees around 4:00 or sooner. One that happens, the dew sets in and get my diapers wet again. So, if the diapers can't dry in a few hours, I have to finish them in the dryer, which is a pain.)

(4) Using cold water to wash. I don't know about you, though, but the cold water does not really get my diapers clean.

(5) Looking into diapering materials that require less water and electricity to produce. I'm thinking that PUL covers probably require more resources than wool ones (especially wool ones purposed from old sweaters), but I could be wrong.

Anyone else have thoughts on water conservation and laundry?

Nicole, my oldest just turned 42 so this is a stretch to remember diaper washing.  I agree that the flat one layer ones were much easier to get clean and to dry on the line.  We didn't have running water, just a small creek and a spring.  We (my husband washed them also, not just 'helped') would use a minimum of water for the prerinse after scraping the poo off...and then washed with a small amount of dr. bronners if we had it or ivory snow, in a big double tub set up to drain on the hill side above the garden.  I think I used washing soda some.

I think the most important thing to getting them clean was lots of water for the final rinse...using as much clean water as possible and then lots of sun to dry.  We had the same issues with sun as you I think and I would sometimes have to bring them in to dry hanging around the house (we were off grid for thirteen years during that time)....I remember having a problem with mildew off and on with those prefolded diapers.
Probably shouldn't admit, I do remember taking them (and sometimes our clothes) to our little creek when it was running well and rinsing there.

I remember really wanting a wringer and finally found one that clamped on to the edge of the tubs...and now thinking back I wonder what happened to it?

We were washing all of our clothes by hand then except for during non stop rainy weather where we would make a run to the nearest laundromat...

I just remembered that when we went to visit parents up north, if they got ahold of the diapers they would bleach them like crazy.....

I have a washer now (still no dryer) and line dry everything and am stubborn enough that if they don't finish drying outdoors they hang around the house until they are dry.

As far as using less water with a washer, I think using less laundry soap is a start.  For summer clothes I often use just some baking soda for the wash, as all they really need is a rinse to remove sweat and then a hang in the sun.

Thinking about it, I probably used much more water hand washing than my maytag uses.  I still appreciate the spin cycle a lot as everything else isn't so hard to do by hand.


EDIT to add...I don't listen to that whole argument against cloth diapers.  I think it's just so folks can justify filling the landfills with more crappy plastic...you notice they're not arguing that we all wear disposable clothes.  Washing cloth diapers takes some dedication and I think many don't have room in their lives for that kind of chore.

I don't listen to that whole argument against cloth diapers.  I think it's just so folks can justify filling the landfills with more crappy plastic...you notice they're not arguing that we all wear disposable clothes.  Washing cloth diapers takes some dedication and I think many don't have room in their lives for that kind of chore.

 I think that Judith nailed it right on the head here.  People are always trying to justify their garbage, their excess, and their reasons for keeping up with the Jones'.  

Also, I remember the enormous amount of work that goes into hand washing diapers, and I think those critics just didn't have it in them to take on the task.  I'm not saying that they are lazy, but sometimes, in some people's lives, having a baby can be a big enough job... and a task like that... might push them over the edge.  It's not a terribly pleasant task, especially in the early stages, especially if all done by hand.
 

We used flat cloth diapers too, and I'm sure we used more water, but we didn't live somewhere that had a shortage. I'd take the diaper out of the wrap-thing that secured it to my daughter's crotch, dip the poopy side into the toilet and swish it around, then squeeze and put it in a hamper to be machine-washed when a load accumulated -- something like every four days. (In a HE front-loader.) But it also never really seemed that gross or like that much work. And it felt way better to be putting cotton against her skin and not throwing away disposables (which we did use occasionally when travelling).  

Wow 3.5 gallons per flush? All of the new toilets I could see at my normal supplier are 4-6L so 1.6 US gallons for a full flush and 1 gallon for a part flush.

Your comparison still works because the machines here will use 15 gallons of water for their heaviest use cycle.

That's got to be way better than 'disposables'.

Some of the discussion points we get into with folks with cloth verses disposable diapers and all that goes along with are downstream from something else you can do.

Take the time to potty train as early as possible depending on what you observe the child's capabilities to be.

We are fixin' to have #6. That'll make 9 years old down to newborn. We aim for the child to be potty trained around 18-24 months at the latest. The more we have, the more the new ones want to be like the old ones and the process gets easier with the "want to" factor of the child.

We do the Jenkins compost toilet and also have an RV toilet for guests and night time. The RV toilet uses very, very little water. The compost one only uses the amount I need to rinse and occasionally scrub the buckets. Excellent use for rainwater.

People often say that disposables are better because they use less water. But, how much water is to make each disposable diaper? How much water pollution occurred because of microplastics from the diapers slowly breaking down? (Of course, if you use polyester/microfiber diapers, you're releasing microplastics each time you wash them.)

According to the University of Florida:

Cloth Diapers: It takes 198 gallons of water to produce one cloth diaper, but because it will be reused many times it has a footprint of 4-24 gallons per use.

Disposable Diapers: For disposable diapers, the water cost is even higher—approximately 144 gallons of water are used to make one diaper, considering all production processes. Parents who choose disposable diapers will go through about 8,000 diapers (1.2 million gallons) per child.

So, if you use disposable diapers, you're using 1.2 million gallons of water per child.

If you use cloth diapers and have, say, 20 cotton flat diapers, that's 200x20=4000 gallons for the growing of the cloth and manufacturing of the diaper. If you wash diapers every 3 days for 2 years, that's (365/3)x15=1,825. Kids in cloth diapers tend to potty train sooner than disposables (mine were trained at 15 & 18 months). So, 1,825 for the washing + 4000 for the making = 5,825.

I'm pretty sure that 5,825 < 1,500,000.

Cloth diapers win on the water count, even if the numbers are slightly off.  

Josh Hoffman wrote:. We aim for the child to be potty trained around 18-24 months at the latest. The more we have, the more the new ones want to be like the old ones and the process gets easier with the "want to" factor of the child.

This is also a much easier age to potty train kids. I worked in preschool for 6 years before I had my son. A large portion of kids, when they hit 2, gain an independent streak that results in large resistance to potty training. And, honestly, it makes sense. They're two, and they're learning a lot, and things are kind of scary, and they've always pooped in a diaper. Suddenly, you tell them to stop doing something they're used to and comfortable doing, and they have a big case of the "I don't want to."

Kids under 2 are often interested in the toilet and willing to try something new because they don't really know it's new & strange. It's just a thing to do.

Once mine could sit, I put them on a tiny toilet while I went potty. If they're sitting, they might as well sit on that! I'd read them stories, make animal sounds, teach sign language, sing them songs, etc. Sometimes they'd pee, and we'd sing a song of "____ went pee, _____ went pee. Yay yay yay, ____ went pee!" (Insert kid's name into blank).

When they were around 15 months, they usually got more interested in the potty, and we'd seize that moment and do the 2-day potty training method. It's super intensive, because you leave them pants-less and basically follow them everywhere and bring them to the potty when they start peeing. But, they learn quick.

Of course, their bladders at that age aren't usually up to holding their pee for a long time. We delayed potty training my son for a month, because we knew we were traveling 8+ hours to Idaho for a wedding and would be there for a few days. We didn't want to train him and then basically un-train him.

Once they were potty trained, we carried a potty in the car. There were many times we'd pull that potty out in a parking lot or pull over on the side of the road so they could pee. We did that for probably a year after they were potty trained? They still had diapers/pull-ups at night for a while. But, no more poopy diapers! No more diapers in the day! A lot less laundry! It was very worth it.

Nicole Alderman wrote: do the 2-day potty training method. It's super intensive, because you leave them pants-less and basically follow them everywhere and bring them to the potty when they start peeing. But, they learn quick.

I imagine the cloth diaper camp trains children earlier in general because of the desire to not process the cloth diapers!

Nicole Alderman wrote:People often say that disposables are better because they use less water.  

Not a chance.

Last year Dad retired from being an industrial chemist doing water treatment for a teabag paper/coffee paper/wipes manufacturer. The water and energy use is insane.

One of my bugbears where I currently work is the huge paper use.

Cloth Diapers: It takes 198 gallons of water to produce one cloth diaper, but because it will be reused many times it has a footprint of 4-24 gallons per use.

The implication of these numbers is that people use a single cloth diaper between eight and 50 times. Really? I don’t think I can accurately reconstruct our numbers from 23 years ago, but I’m pretty sure we got more than 50 uses out of every single one. And eight?! I can’t even imagine…

Christopher Weeks wrote:

Cloth Diapers: It takes 198 gallons of water to produce one cloth diaper, but because it will be reused many times it has a footprint of 4-24 gallons per use.

The implication of these numbers is that people use a single cloth diaper between eight and 50 times. Really? I don’t think I can accurately reconstruct our numbers from 23 years ago, but I’m pretty sure we got more than 50 uses out of every single one. And eight?! I can’t even imagine…

We have a baby in the house now and wash cloth nappies every 2 days, so that would mean they get worn around 182 times just in one year, and they last several years.

We currently use the Disana ones, which are plastic-free. In the past we've used a few plastic-coated modern cloth ones and I found they didn't last as long as cotton ones, but that would still be more than 50 wears.

Nicole Alderman wrote:... They still had diapers/pull-ups at night for a while.

Sooo... from the department of totally weird kids, just in case someone out there is scratching their head wondering how their kid just seems to be... different... unique... what, seriously??

Both my boys were dry at night before I could get them potty trained in the day. It was only when I got totally brave and put them to bed without a diaper, that their brain made the connection with their bodily function, and in the case of the oldest, was more or less instantly potty trained.

But, no more poopy diapers! No more diapers in the day! A lot less laundry! It was very worth it.

Don't I wish. My youngest was potty trained for pee at about 14 months (day and night). Unfortunately he could only poo standing up, so it was several more years before I found a way to help him sit down to poo and not need to put a diaper on just to have a BM. Sigh... I didn't I write something above about totally weird?