Heather Bays: environment

Friday, February 11, 2011

Cloth Diapering Mum!

We have gone cloth! Yep! The best decision ever. We ordered a bunch of AMP diapers after much research, trying to decide how I wanted my cloth diapering system to work. Thanks to our families and a dear friends Mum (one of the coolest Mum's around) we had enough money to buy them which makes this the ultimate gift. We have been using them for almost 2 weeks now and it's SUPER easy and I just LOVE the diapers, they leak far less then disposables and are WAY cuter and so fashionable, lol. Seriously, check out the colours!!

We ordered 20 bamboo inserts, 5 of each size of the microfibre inserts, and 21 of the one size pocket diapers in all different colours that fit babies from 7lbs to 35lbs. I cut up a bunch of soft cotton fabric in squares about the size of my hand to use and wiping cloths. I have a spray bottle and I filled it with water, olive oil, vinegar and baby soap.

I got the recipe from the AMP diapers site:
2 Cups of previously boiled water
1 Tbsp of baby shampoo or baby wash
1 tsp of cooking oil or baby oil (we prefer cooking oil such as canola or olive oil)
1 Tbsp Vinegar (anti fungal)
Pour over wipes in an old wipe container or a similar plastic container of your choice.

Cloth diapers are much easier then I imagined. With what I ordered it seems I can go 4 or 5 days before having to do laundry. My system is something like this...I will fold a bamboo inserts in 3 on the short side (they are rectangular) and lay it on the diaper, this way when I change her I can reuse the diaper if it's not soiled and just throw the soiled insert in the diaper pail bag. And sometimes I will stuff the diaper with a microfibre insert if we'll be playing or going out because they seem really soft and cushy that way and it's much easier and quicker to deal with when you're out...you just throw your diaper in the wet bag instead of the garbage. Here's a short video:

When it comes to laundry day, I just throw both of the pail liner bags in to the front loader and do a cold rinse and then add 1/8 of a teaspoon of Allen's natural laundry soap and do a hot wash. Then I throw the clean diapers in the dryer with 2 clean dry towels (to shorten drying time.) Ta-da! That's it. It sure beats going to the shops and spending like $20 a week on a pack of diapers and lugging them home, only to collect bags of dirty diapers which then end up in the garbage.

These specific diapers will fit Adelaide for her whole diapering life and if we decide to have more babies, we can use them on them too! My opinion after just 2 weeks is obviously grand, but I will do another review in the near future as an update letting you know how things are going with them. But I seriously can't imagine ever going back to disposables!

Saturday, April 18, 2009

The Power of Illusion.

This world makes me wanna scream sometimes?! Why are humans so smart and so dumb? I think it's because we're easily fooled by illusions. Illusion is the worlds most powerful persuader. For example, we were at Superstore the other day and we were trying to figure out which toilet paper to buy. I saw Superstores brand called 'Green', which claims to sell environmentally friendly products. If you read all the writing on the packaging of the toilet paper it goes on and on about how the toilet paper is made from recycled paper and they don't bleach it and by buying this product you are supporting a good thing. But, the 24 rolls of TP is being held together in a HUGE PLASTIC wrapping, saying nowhere anywhere on the packaging that that was made from recycled goods. They choose their words very carefully as to not claim they do either. Smart. I am sure that it's still better then buying a brand of TP that doesn't even use recycled paper, but com'mon, if you are going to claim to care for the earth and go through all the trouble of using recycled goods, why stop at the plastic, the most important part...plastics don't decompose!

We used to buy organic milk. It's like $6.00 for 2 litres...it's expensive, but I was willing to pay for it knowing that there's no antibiotics, steroids and/or chemicals that will come back and bite me in the ass one day...there are consequences to consuming poorly prepared food ya know. BUT...they recently started selling their milk in PLASTIC cartons which are FULL OF CHEMICALS. So much for organic milk.

Baby diapers have been a landfill nightmare since people got lazy and stopped using cloth diapers. But don't worry, I bet every parent feels better knowing that "Huggies is pure and natural" now! Okay what was that...natural?? Pure?? How? It's a disposable diaper! Oh, but the packaging is green and earthy with babies outside in green grass and leaves. Ummmm, keep using those and that green grass won't be there anymore. Seriously, if they really care about being "pure and natural", why don't they make cloth diapers?? Better yet, if YOU really care about being "pure and natural" why aren't YOU using cloth diapers?! It would save the landfills about 2500 diapers that one child creates and it would save you like $2000 and it would save the baby from getting many diaper rashes, lol. Everyone wins! And with the new cloth diapers that are out there these days, there's really NO excuse.
http://www.ampdiaperstore.com/

I wonder what would happen if the label that told you what country a product was made in was changed to WHERE/HOW it was made?! So, for insistence, at Wal-Mart a lot of tags would say "Made in a sweatshop by 3 year olds" or "Made in a filthy factory by a women who works 90 hours a week for $36 a month." Would you still shop there and buy the products? Why do you shop there now knowing that this is what happens? And it's NOT just Wal-Mart!! What about Disney? Ya know, Disney tries to make sure that every single child at Christmas time has a gift to open...providing they live in the states. How nice and thoughtful of them. But what about children and families that make the toys and clothes for Disney? How come they have to go to bed without food?? Well, we all know and have known the answer for a while. Slave labour!

"Disney repeatedly states that, despite vigorous and numerous attempts to investigate conditions, it can find no violations at its contractor plants in Haiti. The enclosed letter, to which we have received no formal reply, tells a different story..."
Read the letter by clicking HERE and scroll down that page just a little. It's worth reading, especially if you are a Disney supporter.

So, why do humans do the things they do even though we know the consequences? Well, I think it's one of 2 things, you just don't care (...which would mean, you suck), and the power of illusion, though it's up to you whether you want to fall for it or not. It's easy to point fingers and blame others for things that we clearly do ourselves, so just know that everyone is a culprit of this. And in the great words of Carl (from Ricky Gervais' podcasts), "do your bit". When something sounds to good to be true, it probably is, so research it. Google it! Stop turning a blind eye! And if you want your kids and grandkids to literally clean up after us, then keep filling those landfills with disposable products like, diapers, swiffers, dusters, pads and tampons. Someone WILL have to deal with it one day, maybe not you and maybe not today...