The Great Diaper Dilemma

Cloth versus Disposable Diapers
To be honest, I had never really considered anything but disposable diapers until my father-in-law's wife Kris asked me what I was going to do. I was bored on her acreage when she asked (at Easter) so I used my blackberry to google it. There are definitely economical and environmental reasons to go with cloth but is that reason enough to out weight the perceived convenience??

Cost, Convenience, Time, Etc:

-I hate doing laundry and our washer & dryer are in the basement whereas baby's room is two floors up, upstairs.
-I am very grossed out by poo (baby, adult or animal produced). Not sure if I can stomach whatever is necessary to do cloth diapers.
-Cloth diapers have come a LONG way from when I was a baby. They are more than just a facecloth with clothes' pins nowadays.

-"Disposable diapers, especially the super-absorbent AGM type, generally require fewer changes and less change time than cloth diapers. They also are convenient for travel and day-care use. Cloth diapers take up less purchase time, but they require additional time for washing and folding, if laundered at home."

-There is an initial start-up cost to doing cloth diapers. My friend Katherine has a friend Melody in Lacombe who has a company called "All Natural Babies" (search it on facebook to check out the catalogue) which shows some of the cloth diaper lines. Most of the diapers seem to be adjustable to work for the entire diaper age range. They price ranged about $15-23 dollars each. I'm not sure how many diapers you would need though?? Most estimates say it'll be about $2-300 dollars to start up with cloth.

-"...disposable diapers can cost between $1500 and $2100 over the course of the three years it takes the average child to be toilet trained," Diane Weathers of Consumer Reports said."

-"The basic numbers show that you will spend approximately $50 a month for disposables (with wipes) compared to about $40 a month for washing your own cloth diapers or about $50 a month for a diaper service. So the acquisition of the diapers themselves shows cloth to be cheaper, but overall cost of care is not very different"

Enviromental Considerations:

-"Throwaway diapers make up the third most common item in our landfill spaces, behind paper products and food containers. Since the average disposable takes about 500 years to break down in a landfill, the proportion of diapers there is ever-increasing."

-"The amount of water to wash diapers is about the same as it is for a potty trained child or adult flushing the toilet." says one source while another says "Generally, creating waste in landfills by using disposable diapers is no more environmentally harmful than using water and energy to wash cloth diapers," Weathers said.[Weathers is from Consumer Reports]

-"Although some diapers are touted as biodegradable, the lack of oxygen in landfills means disposable diapers can take a long time to break down."

-"Judging the relative environmental impact of each method, then, means deciding to what extent solid waste is a more important problem than water use and wastewater disposal."

Ideally, I would like to shadow someone who uses cloth diapers and see how it affects their day. However I don't see that being realistic. I'm still on the fence about this topic but leaning towards disposables at this point.

Sources:
http://www.healthunit.com/article.aspx?ID=10271

http://www.perc.ca/waste-line/articles/diaper.html