Here is the link to one supplier, but there are many.
I've got a friend who's an environmental scientist and they did a study on just this.
The environmentally friendly way is to use one of those rent nappies/pick-up services so they do the washing on an industrial scale and deliver you fresh nappies every week.
Washing your own nappies and using disposables are just as bad as each other (landfill against detergent, water heating for washing machine etc).
When they had a backlog of washing, for example when their son had a tummy bug with runny bum, they had to dip into their supply of disposable nappies anyway.
Just one thing to note!! My husband made the mistake the first month and filled a rubbish bag up just with our daughters deposits. Well hell did he swear when trying to pick it up! Damn thing was so heavy and at any moment I was waiting for it to rip. Since then we filled the household rubbish up in the bag and it was better. Once a week the bag gets picked up so it never gets gross. Would however think about a shady place as in the summer things might start cooking out there.
The outlay would be small, a van, 1 or 2 industrial washing machines and dryers, and a space. I have thought about starting such a company- but I am retired, live in an isolated area- and just too old to start a new venture.
Then when I'm throwing the regular kitchen garbage out, I leave some space in the bag so I can add to it the bag o' dirty diapers.
Once our little one moved on from Milk and onto blended foods and specifically meat - we started to empty the Angelcare every other day into a bin outside where we also drop in bags from the cat litter trays.
When emptying the kitchen bin bag we leave space at the top for the contents of the outside bin.
To be honest, I am thinking of doing away with the Angelcare and dumping them all in the outside bin.
As usual, we don't always agree, and that is fine. But why on earth the 'groan' FrankS - what have I said that could warrant that - could you explain please (Not that I care, but it makes me wonder)? Cheers.
My niece uses them is is really happy. She has to use a communal washing machine in basement, but 90% of the time dries them on small clothes horse on her balcony. In my day of course, we had those horrible square terry nappies and a bucket of Napisan- no choice then, lol.
Both kinds found in Coop or Migros!
They are actually very easy to wash - not like the old terry ones I had to use for our little ones in the days of old.
Now for another groan, lol - in those days, having to use terry nappies meant that our little ones were all potty trained by 2. Now you can groan - cheers. (only jesting, but yet true- those nappies were such a pain, that we were all really eager to see the back of them. Very motivating )
the smell happens when the pee starts to fermet, or something. and it takes up more room and weight in the garbage bag when wet, so why not let the pee only diapers dry out? hang them somewhere where guests can't see or put a shelf in the bathroom, use scissors to cut open the insides to the gel has direct exposure to air. let them get nice and crunchy then throw them away?
disgusting maybe, but if you have a corner somewhere you can put a rack, then why not? unless your kid eats asparagus, the pee shouldn't smell.
the poop from diapers is 'technically' supposed to be flushed b/c human waste shouldn't be put in the solid waste stream. so once the poops are easily dumpable (all solid food), flush them and hang dry then toss?
poop (and puke) from breastfeeding is MUCH less 'fragrant' than poop from formula, so which you decide to do may help you decide how to dispose of it. solid food transition can be gross.
also there is a diaper system in the US that I found interesting. the cover is reusable but the liners are disposable, and flushable! if marketed correctly here they could be a huge success considering the cost of disposing of solid waste. www.gdiapers.com
i used cloth diapers for my kids and i tried the gdiapers in their early stages. they were pretty good then, and i am sure they have improved their design since then. using cloth gives you a certain tolerance for poop and pee but having lots of colors and prints and tye dye was necessary to ignore the less than glamorous part!
I agree. my daughter was not quiet 2 and my son was 2.5 when they were fully trained. i was the envy of the families with 4 year olds walking around in diapers. but it was a lot of work for those years, washing and changing more often than disposables.