Washington, DC, taxes plastic shopping bags, and use goes down by 83% in one month. “Geez, that was simple,” wrote CommonDreams.org.
The tax, one of the first of its kind in the nation, is designed to change consumer behavior and limit pollution in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. ~Tim Craig, Washington Post
Funds raised from the tax were lower than expected, but that was because the overall program worked so well so quickly.
It wouldn’t be terribly difficult to apply this a similar incentive to reduce waste from disposable diapers.
According to the EPA’s most recent municipal waste report (2008), 2.3% by weight of products discarded in the municipal waste stream are disposable diapers. That means that out of 166,740,000 tons or 333,480,000,000 pounds of trash, disposable diapers accounted for 3,790,000 tons or 7,580,000,000 pounds of non-recovered, toss-it-in-the-landfill trash in 2008.
The percentage of trash from diapers has gone up every year and continues to go up. With increasing population, one could understand how raw numbers go up, but this is percentage going up. As we figure out how to reduce and reuse, unless we also reduce the use of disposable diapers, that number will continue to go up. In Europe, where there is considerably more recycling and less discarding of durable goods, disposable diapers make up 15% of trash. The better we are at reducing, the more glaring disposable diapers become in the numbers.
Why do we put up with this? Why is this outrageous percentage of unnecessary waste normalized in our culture? It is normalized and excused as people forget that there are better options. Real diapers don’t cause waste.
7.6 billion pounds of diapers a year discarded in the U.S.
That’s about the weight of a billion newborn babies.
In the past year since the No Impact Man movie and book came out, Colin Beavan has turned No Impact into a movement through No Impact Project.
One of the Project’s programs is No Impact Week, a guided, week-long experiment to explore no-impact living. The idea is that we try the experiment and ask ourselves questions about our stuff. Short time makes it bounded and doable. Little pain. Time to explore.
The most ridiculous, wasteful consumer products ever? How about throwaway underwear? We need to step back and ask questions about the products we allow into our homes and our consciousness.
What a Waste to throw away 10s of billions of disposable diapers every year when reusable diapers will do a better job for less money. Our culture has begun to let go of throwaway drink bottles and throwaway plastic bags in favor of reusable bottles and reusable bags. We can’t keep buying products knowing that we will be throwing them away after only a short period of use.
Disposable products create waste, whether that waste is sent to a landfill for 1000 years, flushed and disposed of through wastewater treatment, or composted and disposed of as yard waste.
Reusable products do not create waste.
Cloth diapers use fewer resources in their manufacture, distribution, use, and disposal. As more people become aware of the need to reduce, reuse, and recycle, it is time to make the switch back to 100% reusable cloth diapers.
Have you seen the 20-minute presentation of The Story of Stuff? This is an incredibly concise introduction to Extractions > Production > Distribution > Consumption > Disposal, with a focus on eliminating waste by choosing another way: sustainability.
Looking at comments on the Story of Stuff, a lot of people say, “Yea? But where are the references.” References abound throughout the Story of Stuff website, but now we have a collection of references printed on garbage because The Story of Stuff the book was just released. Haven’t read it yet, but I’ll post a review once I do.
“Filled with astonishing photographs of surprising beauty, this book, manufactured from recycled materials, helps us grasp visually the potential consequences of our culture of waste.” Description of Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait by Chris Jordan.
What a Waste is a project of Real Diaper Association (RDA). Its intent is to bring together the individuals and organizations---be they nonprofit or for-profit---who endorse and support the choice of reusable cloth diapers as a powerful way to reduce waste.
Together, we will compile
and publish research and news highlighting efforts to reject throwaway thinking and to promote the use of reusable products, particularly cloth diapers.
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