Okay, something has happened that I never thought would happen. When they told me it would happen, I laughed and said they were wrong. People are smarter than this. Surely - SURELY - we wouldn't buy into a concept so thoroughly ridiculous and obviously single minded.

Wow. We did.

Enviornmentalists are now claiming that cloth diapers are actually as bad, if not worse, for then environment than disposables.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Who, you may ask, did this study?

Proctor and Gamble. Yep. One of the largest disposable diaper manufacturers in the world.

It has now been seconded by a government environmental agency.

Before you get all worked up - or read the article and don't know the truth - let me point out a few errors in their (probably very well paid) calculations.

They say that the waste from the washing of cloth diapers is greater than the waste in the production and discard of disposables. Okay, I'll give you this: disposables definitely need less washing. But the amount of water and energy used to wash cloth diapers is equivalent or less than the amount needed to flush the toilet for the equivalent number of bathroom trips! In other words, if your kid is potty training, it takes the same amount of energy for that as to wash cloth diapers. They also don't mention that wasting water and household energy (which may be powered by windmills now) is MUCH better for the environment than wasting the oil needed to make a diaper (yes, there are petroleum byproducts in diapers), and that "wasting" water is also much better for the environment than the dioxin that is produced in the making of disposables.

They also, apparently, did not consider in their "production" calculations that cloth diapers will last for more than one child. Though you have to buy new disposables for each baby, cloth diapers can last for up to 4 kids - so suddenly the math becomes a little skewed because it is cut in fourth.

The last argument they make is that the diapers in landfills only account for 2% of the solid waste we consume. Frankly, that's still a big chunk. We consume WAAAAAAY too much solid waste as it is. That ridiculously statistical percentage would be much higher if we didn't use 18 pounds of PVC packaging on every child's toy and quadruple bag every gallon of milk we buy.

Has anyone else heard this argument? What were your initial thoughts?