Regular disposable diapers are made of plastic (yup, even the brown ones), and they can take 500 years to break down. gDiapers gRefills are the only diaper that is certified 100% biodegradable. See how they compare…
composting
We’ll say it until the cows come home: the most earth-friendly way to dispose of your gRefills is by home composting (wet-only please). Not everyone is set up for home composting, and if you’re not, don’t stress it. You have options. Ultimately, even if the only way you have to get rid of baby’s gRefills is by tossing, you can still breathe easy knowing that on the upstream side of things, gRefills don’t require petroleum, unlike disposable diapers. Thank goodness, right?
Let’s make some dirt.
When you compost your yard debris, food scraps and wet gRefills (not the poopy ones), you’re keeping a lot of stuff out of the landfill. At the same time you’re creating a rich soil amendment plants love. And that reduces the need for fertilizers. Choose a compost method, whichever works for your home, your lifestyle, etc.
- Open-air composting. Use either holding bins or an uncontained pile to compost yard debris. You can make your own bins with wire mesh, old fencing, wooden pallets or wood and wire or buy them ready-made.
- Hot composting. This is a good option if your garden produces a lot of yard debris and you want to have high-quality compost quickly. Use a series of two or three bins made of wood, wire or masonry blocks. Hot piles require some effort, but the compost you produce is typically of a higher quality, because the high temperatures kill weed seeds and many plant diseases. It can also be quicker than open-air composting.
- Compost Tumblers. This is a convenient way to get quick, pest-free compost, especially if you plan to throw in a lot of fruit and veggie scraps without a worm bin.
Now, find a spot to set up your composting system. Choose a shady spot, near a water source if possible.
know your greens from your browns.
Finding the perfect balance of nitrogen or green matter and carbon or brown matter is the key to well-performing composter.
Green comes from grass clippings, disease-free weeds and fruit scraps. Chicken manure and rotted manure also fall under this category. Brown comes from dried leaves, hay, sawdust and wood chips (and other similar stuff).
Begin by throwing in a layer of dried leaves (brown matter) about eight inches thick. Dampen them a bit with water. Then add some grass (green matter). Mix well, so everything is evenly distributed and damp but not soaked. For an added boost, sprinkle in some rich soil. A shovel-full is too much. Then add whatever else you have around. Check your compost regularly to make sure your pile is shrinking. If you have a tumbler, be sure to turn everything over with a pitchfork or rake regularly. After a few weeks, you should have compost for your garden.
composting gDiapers gRefills.
A wet gRefill should break down in your home compost in 55 – 150 days. Though depending on your compost, it could be even faster. See the pics in this guy’s blog. It’s amazing! No disposable diaper ever did this. http://chadcomeault.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/gdiaper-gone/
Open the gRefill to reveal the inner core. While this isn’t necessary, it will speed up the composting process by providing more surface areas for the bugs and enzymes to do their job. You can either drop the gRefill into your compost or put it in the tub or bucket you use to collect scraps in your kitchen.
what if your compost pile isn’t doing so hot?
Problem: The compost pile does not heat up or appear to be decomposing.
There are several things that can stall or slow down the composting process.
- Too wet? Turn the pile and add dry, coarse material like straw or wood chips.
- Too dry? Add enough water to moisten the pile without soaking it.
- Moist but not decomposing? Add more “green” matter. Turn and add nitrogen-rich material like manure or grass clippings.
- Damp and warm in the middle? Your pile may be too small. Add more green and brown matter, a little water and tumble. If your compost is dark and crumbly and has an earthy smell it may be ready to use.
Problem: Critters are living in or near your compost pile.
Remove fatty food and excess kitchen scraps, turn to increase temperature and balance the carbon (brown) nitrogen (green) ratio. Consider using an animal-proof bin like a tumbler.
Problem: Compost smells rotten.
Your compost is too wet and needs more air. It’s rotting not decomposing. Turn compost and add dry material to help absorb moisture.
fun reading for you and your kids.
Compost! Growing Gardens from Your Garbage, by Linda Glaser
Planting a Rainbow, by Lois Ehlert
Jack’s Garden, by Henry Cole
Wonderful Worm’s, by Linda Glaser
Spring, by Gerda Muller
photo by Resha Willis
There are lots of ways to describe gRefills. Here are a few: biodegradable, compostable, flushable and plastic-free. Bottom line, they’re a disposable diaper done better. And by better we mean better for baby and better for the planet. At the end of the day they don’t have to end up in a landfill. Could they? Will they? Some very well may. But it’s not a requirement.
Regular disposable diapers have no option other than this trashcan or that trashcan. They can’t be composted (please don’t try), they can’t be flushed (that’s pretty obvious) and they will never biodegrade. So the option for disposal is….well, there isn’t one.
So, what if a gRefill does get thrown away? What then? The EPA is pretty adamant about how nothing biodegrades in a landfill. And we’re not going to argue. But what we can tell you is that even if you do throw away your gRefills, you can breathe easy knowing that on the upstream side of things (the production phase) the environmental footprint of a gRefill is teeny tiny. It takes about a cup of oil to make each disposable diaper. That’s a hefty footprint for such a little product. gRefills are plastic free and so don’t require petroleum in the production.
Want to keep diapers completely out of landfills? Compost the wet ones, flush the poopy ones. And if you have no other option but to toss them, don’t sweat it. You’re doing an incredible thing regardless. Your baby thanks you. We thank you. And if the earth could talk, we’re positive it would thank you, too.
gBaby Magnolia and her home-grown tomatoes.
So you’ve been home-composting for years. Your garbage can is perpetually empty from your resourceful ways, your recycling bin is delightfully minimized thanks to your packaging-free lifestyle, and your compost bin is a flurry of earthy activity. Now you hear about compostable diapers. It’s true. gRefills can be home composted! From bum to bin, from pee to peonies, from bottom to topsoil. You’re stoked. But why oh why do we say to only compost the wet gRefills? What about the poopy ones?
We know you want to, you go-getter you. Truth is, we think composting ALL your gRefills would be A+ awesome sauce. But at the end of the day, we are a company that is speaking to a very wide and vast audience. We cannot responsibly advocate that parents home compost their baby’s poopy diapers as there can be human health risks involved. If this is an option you would like to seriously consider there are resources available to guide you.
Rest assured, if the only diapers you’re composting are the wet ones, that’s still a TON of diapers that you’re keeping out of the landfill. Your garden is going to want to give you a hug. Please let us know if it does.
From time to time we get asked about SAP, you know, the gel-like stuff inside diapers. Does it work? Is it safe? Can I play with it? Answers: yes. yes. and umm, okay, sure…
The tougher questions we hear about SAP are regarding its safety. There’s a lot of misinformation and skepticism out there because (high fives) PARENTS ARE AWESOMELY WELL-INFORMED! Or at least we all try our very best to be. Though a Google search will turn up a variety of interesting feedback, there’s little by way that will actually point you to the hard science behind this fascinating little ingredient. So we have that conveniently collected, inspected, and collated (were this on paper) the hard science facts for your parental due diligence. Here it is:
SAP (sodium polyacrylate) has been rigorously tested both in the US and abroad. The general conclusions are that it is completely safe and non-toxic. MBDC is the leading US based design chemistry firm. MBDC has assessed SAP as GREEN, which is the safest assessment a chemical or material can receive.
- It’s on the PAFA list – these are things the FDA has approved for adding to food
- SAP has an oral LD50 of40g/kg. It means that a 10 lb baby would have to eat about 200 grams to be at risk (about 50 gRefills). Also to put this number in perspective, an Oral LD50 of 10g/kg is considered “harmless” by EPA standards. Typical table sugar is somewhere between 10-20g/kg so SAP is less toxic via ingestion than table sugar.
- The Danish EPA determined that “No serious adverse effects were observed by oral, dermal or pulmonal administration”. This means it’s safe to be used against skin. Additionally they determined that this substance was not toxic to aquatic organisms.
- CCRIS (Chemical Carcinogenesis Research Information System) determined that this substance is not mutagenic in bacterial tests (Ames) and in Eukaryotic tests (tests with mammalian cells).
- BIBRA Information Services Ltd (a UK organization) employs a team of toxicologists to review substances and they have determined that oral administration of sodium polyacrylate to pregnant rats did not produce foetotoxicity or teratogenicity (birth defects) at doses up to maternal toxicity levels.
What you may read about in blogs and such is the reference to TSS (toxic shock syndrome), when SAP was pulled from tampons in the early 80′s. There was concern that the two were linked. But the truth is, it wasn’t. Just a couple of years ago Newsweek reported an uptick in TSS (2 decades after SAPs removal from tampons). The cause of TSS was not the absorbency that the FDA assumed in the 80′s, but the over-extended use of a single tampon over a prolonged period, allowing for bacteria to build up.
A while back Mothering magazine included an article citing many of the concerns about SAP that are out there. The following issue they printed a letter to the editor (Jan/Feb 2007) that debated these concerns on scientific grounds. The letter to the editor author (Susan Manning, PhD) followed up on a study that Mothering cited — she went directly to the co-author of a study that “mice exposed to disposable diapers suffered from respiratory problems”. She asked the co-author (Mr. Anderson of Anderson Laboratories) about this and he said he was misquoted, the respiratory problems they found in mice were due to the added perfumes in most disposables. She asked if there were problems with SAP and “he replied that he knew of none”.
So why is there SAP in diapers? And in our gRefills? Because it works amazingly well. The fact remains that there does not yet exist an ingredient with the same absorbent qualities. Its sole function is to capture moisture, and then slowly release it (an action that occurs after your baby is done using it, thankfully). To get close to the same amount of absorbent capacity we would have to use a ludicrous amount of fluff pulp (the other ingredient in our gRefills), which isn’t sustainable from an environmental standpoint, and isn’t comfortable for baby.
A nice thing about SAP is that it keeps working even after disposal. When the wet gRefills are composted the SAP will hold and then slowly release moisture in your garden. In fact, SAP is marketed in nurseries as “water holding crystals”. When flushed, the SAP is complimentary to the waste water process, by helping separate the liquids from the solids and creating Biosolids (fertilizer for land application).
We understand that parents want to feel good about what goes against their baby’s skin. We completely agree. We’re all parents here! (Well, 17 of the 18 anyway). No way would we use a product that we didn’t feel 100% certain about. A couple of highlights that really sealed the deal for us: SAP is less toxic than table sugar, it is inert in nature, it is a common ingredient in high-end fertilizers (and is therefore sitting in the soil right alongside our potatoes and strawberries!), it has received a green certification (a feat not so easily accomplished!), and that the scientific studies all point to the conclusion that SAP is a completely safe ingredient. We wouldn’t settle for anything less.