Chlorine free diapers? What's up with that? The Great Diaper Dilemma steadily grows more complex.
Satisfying your conscience and your baby's needs, you still face the same fundamental choice: Cloth or disposable? You do not face an entirely new choice; instead, you simply have another variable to consider. Yes, you may complicate your deliberations out of all proportion: Looking online, you will find several friendly diaper-advice sites that advocate as many as seven or eight wash-and-rinse cycles to achieve perfect whiteness, cleanliness, and softness. Ask a working mother where she will fit seven or eight wash-and-rinse cycles into her Dayrunner. Or ask a mother of five or six children how she really feels about washing-and-rinsing the youngest one's nappies seven or eight times.
If you insist on chlorine-free diapers, you have three choices. First, you may order chlorine-free disposable diapers online, adjusting the orders for more and bigger as your baby grows into toddlerhood. Chlorine-free disposable diapers look and feel no different from your ordinary everyday Huggies, Pampers, and Luvs, but their manufacturers assure the earth-friendliness of their processes. They make the diapers from recycled paper and plastic, and they achieve that snow-blind whiteness without chlorine bleach. Ordering chlorine-free diapers online, you make a few keystrokes and modern technology does the rest. Naturally, you pay for your convenience and conscientiousness: Chlorine-free diapers cost more, and you pay a small fortune for shipping. But your conscience is clear.
Second, you may elect regular old cloth diapers, traditional and time-tested. And you may soak and wash them in detergents and whiteners with "bleach alternative." You will discover the necessity of a third cycle-an extra rinse with fabric softener, because the regular wash-and-rinse leave the diapers feeling more like dishtowels than something fit for adorning your babies precious bottom. You may suffer conscience-stricken after-thoughts from this plan, because you use between twenty and twenty-five more gallons of water as you complete the third cycle; and scientists have not yet assessed what kinds of biohazards the fabric softeners contain.
Third, you may delegate the whole business of chlorine-free washing and rinsing and drying and folding and stacking and transporting to a diaper-service. Dirty diapers are out; clean diapers in; no muss, no fuss, no bother. Crunching the numbers with proper respect for the value of your time-your regular professional rate plus 10% for aggravation-you probably will discover diaper service costs just about the same as your two other alternatives.
