Any hoo… I’ve “discovered” something that’s even greener! I say “discovered” because it’s nothing new. It’s actually been around, well, forever. But, as excited as I am about it, you’d think NASA, or Google, just came up with it last week! I’m in shock, absolutely stunned that I didn’t think of it before. And I can’t believe it’s not discussed in every baby book available – especially the slew of Green Baby books that are being churned out these days.

Are you ready to hear what is positively, absolutely, hands down greener than gdiapers and cloth? The answer may surprise you….

The answer my friends is – the humble potty!

Turns out even infants can use a potty! Sounds too good to be true, but its really not. My 5 month-old has been doing it for a week now.

It was a lot of work the first couple of days. We spent a lot of time in the bathroom on false alarms as I sorted through what the correct signals, faces, noises were for potty time, but our percentage of successes compared to trips to the bathroom has improved exponentially in just a few days. What started out as one success for every 4 trips to the potty has improved to about 3 successes for every 4 trips as of today. Of course, I still put a diaper on her. She is, after all, only 5 months old. 

I’ll be totally honest. The first couple of days required a lot of patience from both of us. No way would a daycare or babysitter put up with it. But, a week into this, I’m sold. Its awesome. If the act of being able to flush a gdiaper was satisfying, just emptying a potty is a thousand times better. (And a helluvalot less messy!)

Note that I’m not calling it potty training. Apparently people don’t think infants can be trained, so the correct terminology is actually “elimination communication”, EC for short. In fact, a Pediatrician I spoke to about this phenomenon was totally cynical and said that, “of course the infant isn’t potty trained, it’s the parent that is potty trained.” For me, I don’t care. I’m absolutely willing and happy to be the one being trained. 

As for Baby, I think she likes having a clean diaper for the majority of the day. That’s why she puts up with me.

The Environmental Working Group’s Cosmetic Safety Database covers it all: Makeup, Skin Care, Hair Care, Eye Care, Nail Care, Baby Care, Oral Care, and Fragrance. In addition to a rating between 0-10, the database helpfully tells you whether ingredients in the product are linked to:

• Cancer
• Developmental/reproductive toxicity
• Violations, restrictions & warnings
• Allergies/immunotoxicity
• Other concerns for ingredients used in the product: Neurotoxicity, Endocrine disruption, Persistence and bioaccumulation, Organ system toxicity (non-reproductive), Miscellaneous Irritation (skin, eyes, or lungs), Contamination concerns, Occupational hazards, Biochemical or cellular level changes.

Its truly scary what the most advertised, most popular products contain. In fact, the most common names have the higher scores (and, of course, higher scores are NOT good in this case). Even more than being scared, we should all be disgusted with the companies who dare to misrepresent their products by slapping a “natural” or “organic” label on products that contain ingredients proven to be harmful.

No mountain of disposables in the local landfill, no questionable chemicals next to baby’s bottom, and as an extra bonus, no more stinky diaper pails in your living areas!

Even if you think your house’s plumbing can’t handle the gDiapers, you can always toss them in the garbage like a regular disposable. When sent to the landfill, gDiapers decompose in about 90 days, or about 500 years faster than disposables decompose. Additionally, gDiapers are compostable. Haven’t tried this one yet, but for all of you ultra-composters it might be good to know this is an option.

Before you completely write off the flushing option, check out the How-To tips and videos on the gDiaper site. It doesn’t really require the industrial strength flush that you might be envisioning. Done as instructed, those dirties go right down. Done incorrectly, you’ll get some blockage but not on a catastrophic scale. Though I have to admit that we keep a plunger nearby just-in-case.

On the minus side, gDiapers are more expensive than disposables. My unscientific research shows that using gDiapers will cost you almost 75% more than disposables if you buy your disposables in regular retail outlets, and about 100% more if you buy your disposables at a warehouse store like Costco. No idea how they compare to cloth diapers. 

In the spirit of full disclosure, I need to say that I am a RAVING FAN of gDiapers and am completely biased. If you want balanced info about the pro’s and con’s of gdiapers vs cloth diapers, you might need to keep googling. Of course, I’m not opposed to doing a joint post with someone who is devoted to cloth… I just need a contributing author.

In any case, gDiaper and cloth use is not a mutually exclusive choice. Many cloth diaper advocates use the gDiaper liners and covers, and just swap the flushable pads for cloth inserts. Apparently the marriage of the two is a wonderful thing. Browsing the gDiaper Yahoo Group shows the cloth diaper community to be more active contributors than the flushable community. Not sure if that means there are more questions to ask because using cloth is more complicated, or if the flushie group is just quieter. Either way, the group is a fabulous resource for anyone using or interested in using gDiapers.

If you’re interested in checking out gdiapers for yourself, they offer Starter Kits that have everything you need to get going. Choose one of these links for the starter kits:

Want to take it a step farther? Use flushable wipes! Try these. We love, love, love them!