gDiapers raised $3.6 million to test its flushable diaper in cities such as Portland, known for its conscientious consumers.

A new flushable diaper hit the shelves in Portland and Northern California this winter.

Expected by mid-December to receive the first Cradle-to-Cradle certification for a packaged consumer product (see “Birth of a ‘Cradle to Cradle’ certification ,” www.sijournal.com, Aug. 19, 2005), gDiapers provides an alternative to disposable and cloth diapers, according to the Portland-based company. gDiapers says it raised $3.6 million from private investors to launch the new product in a few test cities. Jason and Kim Graham-Nye discovered flushable diapers while living in Australia.

The pair quickly snapped up the rights to make and market the product outside of Australia and New Zealand. gDiapers selected Portland as ground zero for its marketing launch because of the city’s environmentally conscious reputation, said Jason Graham-Nye, gDiaper’s CEO.

Americans use approximately 50 million diapers every day, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and disposable diapers account for 3.5 million tons of the annual U.S. waste stream. Although only 5 percent of the population uses the baby products, disposable diapers are tallied as the third largest contributor to landfills (behind beverage containers and newspapers).

The traditional alternative — cloth diapers — requires already exhausted parents to take on added work. Further, cloth diapers are not considered a definitive environmental solution, given the use of pesticide-intensive cotton, as well as the energy costs associated with laundering dirty diapers.

gDiapers says flushing provides a third “hybrid” solution, with a design that incorporates reusable cloth outer pants with Velcro tabs andsingle-use liners. When the diaper needs to be changed, the liner snaps out of the pants, and the pad can be pushed out into the toilet. A new flushable pad goes back into the liner, and the next diaper is ready to go.

The outer pants are made from a cotton blend. The company said it looked into using organic cotton but found the price too high to make the product affordable. But gDiapers claims to minimize the impact of heavy pesticide use by producing only the reusable covers from cotton. And although virgin forests are clear-cut to produce a large amount of the disposable paper products used in the United States, gDiapers’ flushable liners use a fluffy cellulose material derived from Sustainable Forestry Initiative certified forests.

While perhaps not as convenient as the disposable diaper, gDiapers eliminate landfilled waste, minimize washing and are considered easier to deal with than cloth diapers. The company says the “wet only” liners are also compostable.

 “It takes time to get used to it,” said Jason Graham-Nye. “The thing that’s going to be a challenge for most customers is the flushing.”

The company also provides a “swish stick” in its starter-pack. The stick helps parents separate the soiled liner material and flush it. But as the product becomes more widespread, gDiapers says it hopes to eliminate the stick from its kit.

“It’s like training wheels,” Graham-Nye said.