A Resolve

A few months ago, I read an article about some women who refuse to have children because they claim that having children is a selfish act that destroys the environment. The article made me feel a little bit guilty. Not because I agree that having children is selfish...in fact, I think that anyone who thinks that having children is a selfish act has obviously never had children, because being a mother has got to be the most self-less job in the universe...I did realize after reading the article, however, that there are many things that I could be doing to help the environment, and I wasn't. So, I began looking for ways to be a little more earth-friendly. I found a local recycling center and started collecting all of my plastic, aluminum, tin, glass & paper products, and delivering them every Wednesday to have them recycled. It's amazing to me how much less trash goes out to the curb every week now that half of my trash gets recycled! I have also gained a great appreciation for the volunteer workers who stand outside in the cold every week and help sort through and smash the recyclables. Truly, these people are committed to helping the environment.

Once recycling, I decided to look for other ways to cut back on waste and help save the planet. What I discovered was something that I would have never considered a few years ago....cloth diapers! My vision of cloth diapers has always been the old squares of fabric held together by giant safety pins, covered with a bulky vinyl bloomer. I have this horrific memory of holding a cloth-diaper-clad child at church a few years ago, and that vinyl plastic cover just didn't do its job and the diaper leaked all over my Sunday dress. At that moment, I swore I would never subject my child to anything so grotesque! It's been a few years since then, and as they say, times change, and people do too. So, as I finished off my most recent Costco-size box of Huggies, I thought of my new resolve to become more earth-friendly, and I began to consider things I would have never thought possible.

Melissa Richardson, a friend of ours from San Antonio, has a website that promotes Fuzzy Bunz, a very cute & modern brand of cloth diapers. I started at her website: www.babiesroots.com and began reading about the many cloth diaper options that are available. I was impressed. It would seem that cloth diapering really has come a long way since my soggy encounter a few years ago. After spending hours on the internet, reading reviews and comparing prices, I decided to take the plunge. I found a brand called "bum genius" that seem to be very similar to Fuzzy Bunz, and they were on clearance at www.cottonbabies.com. I bought six of them for around $80. Once I had made the investment, I had to start using the diapers. I found that they were very easy to use, and I really do think Eden likes wearing them. They are very soft and seem like they would feel much more comfortable than disposables. So, I bought another six diapers, as well as some cloth training pants for my bed-wetting preschoolers. Within just a few weeks, our family went all-cloth in our diapering. Now that garbage can on the curb really is half empty, and a lot less stinky! I really do think I'll stick with the cloth diapers. I mean, I have to now, so I can get my money's worth out of them. I haven't done all of the math to figure out just how much I'm spending on water and electricity and detergent to wash and dry all of the diapers, but I'm sure it can't be more expensive than buying disposables all the time, and it definitely has to be better for the environment, right? So, there you have it. My own small effort to save the planet. I invite anyone reading this to join me in my quest to live just a little bit greener for 2008!