No babies? Here's a reason to feel smug

John Thackera writes at the Doors of Perception blog:
I learned at the university of Cincinnati last week that 98 percent of all US households containing babies use some disposable diapers, and that an American child can run through 8,000 to 10,000 of these products before becoming fully toilet trained at age three or later.

This is in contrast to a baby born in East Africa where poor families use zero disposables and and "dryness is accomplished by five or six months". The context for this discussion is that disposable nappies (as we call them in the UK) are not "disposable" at all.

As a classic 1988 article by Carl Lehrburger and Rachel Snyder in Whole Earth Review explains, "we throw about 18 billion of them away each year into trash cans and bags, believing they've gone to some magic place where they will safely disappear - when the truth is, most of the plastic-lined "disposables" end up in landfills. There they sit, tightly wrapped bundles of urine and feces that partially and slowly decompose only over many decades. What started out as a marketer's dream of drier, happier, more comfortable babies has become a solid-waste nightmare of squandered material resources, skyrocketing economics, and a growing health hazard, set against the backdrop of dwindling landfill capacity in a country driven by consumption".
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Of course, for environmentally minded the alternatives--going diaper free, early potty training, etc.--require a huge investment of time and effort.

Or you could not have children and feel good about the fact that Mother Earth is cleaner and sweeter-smelling thanks to your wise decision.

And speaking of diapers, I've just discovered a horrible new trend: diaper cakes. Apparently, some genius thought it would be fashion these planet-polluters into wedding-style cakes. I'd rather not imagine what passes for filling.
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