Monday, October 8, 2012

Captain Planet

It took a little while for me to learn that I married Captain Planet. I sometimes want to start singing the song to him. "Captain planet, He's our hero.  He's gonna take pollution down to zero."  It must be from living in the Bay Area with all the tree-huggers and hippies. Kevin doesn't really strike me as a hippy, but he does love earth. I get in really big trouble when I forget to put something in the recycling, he curses people whenever he sees litter, and he is always concerned about global warming, I have even been forced to sit and watch "An Inconvenient Truth".  It's not that I don't care about the environment, but I really don't think my carbon footprint is that large.  
So far, all these little nuances have been cute and endearing until NOW.  My fetus will be here in about a month, and although I am very excited to meet the little miracle, I am slightly apprehensive.  Kevin seems to think that having disposable diapers is the worst thing I can do for the environment. Yes, He thinks I have nothing better to do all day than 10 loads of laundry (and ruin the water supply for the world) by reverting back to prehistoric times and using cloth diapers.
His arguments - 2% of the waste in landfills is diapers.  My fetus will use 5000 diapers by the time he is potty trained.  He says I can use a diaper service and they will pick up my old smelly diapers and drop off fresh ones each week.  How exciting! Won't that add to pollution? I just get so excited when I think about what this means for me,  I get to keep stinky diapers in my tiny apartment that smell like poop, the will allow waste to get all over my baby, his clothes, take up space, and think of the diaper rash from it not being as absorbing.
AHHHHH.  I have tried to be a good sport about this, but the end is near and I do not want to be confined to my house to take care of linens.  What if Brady Belichick and I want to go to the park, or the zoo, or on vacation?  What now?  Carry around poopy smelly diapers for hours or days? I could compromise Kevin's morals and keep a few disposables on hand for such occasions.  No, I need to come up with another option. I hear of mother's not using diapers at all.  Isn't that fantastic.  Since I am a tremendous mind reader, I will just watch my baby's face all day and when I see cues, we will run to the potty and sit on the toilet...Ok, I would rather do cloth than that.
In my research, I have come across what I hope will be the compromise. Compostable diapers! They also have a service.  They are "disposable" and work like a disposable diaper, but are 100% biodegradable and within 14 weeks are turned into topsoil.   I will have someone come, take them away and compost them for me. Look at me being a Planeteer.  I am pretty proud of myself.  I think this is even going to be a cheaper option than cloth.  Hallelujah! I just hope they don't start decomposing on my baby's bottom.
If any of you have advice and have tried to be a better person that I am willing to be, please comment and give me some advice, but the more I think about it, the more anti-cloth I become.

3 comments:

Jennie Holt said...

I thought about cloth when I was having my first....for about a minute. I just couldn't do it, I gagged a few times just reading this....poop is grooossss.

Lisha said...

I never considered cloth diapers, way too much disgustingness for this chick. One of the girls I work with made a whole bunch of diapers for her baby thinking it would save money ... but that lasted about 2 days until she decided it was too gross. I think the composatable diapers are a great compromise for you and Captain Planet.

Erica Hill said...

I've done a bit of research on the topic. From what I've gathered I like Fuzzibuns though we haven't started using them yet. Here is a great blog that goes through her 3 years of using cloth with videos and comparisons of different brands. Let me know if you go cloth- though I'm with you and think it's a bit crazy when you don't have a w/d in your unit.

http://styleberryblog.com/charlie-banana-vs-fuzzibunz-elite-5-reasons-why-i-love-charlie-banana