Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Diaper Duty: Judy and Tim Aagard, co-owners of Tiny Tots Diaper Service in Campbell, help 3,000 families a week keep clean with cloth, recyclable diapers for their babies.
Tiny Tots offers parents in Campbell its recyclable cloth-diaper services
Owners claim cloth is better than disposable
By Moryt Milo
As Americans celebrate Earth Day and advocate for a healthier planet on April 22, one Campbell Company, Tiny Tots Diaper Service Inc. has been helping the environment for more than 40 years.
The company offers a weekly cloth-diaper delivery service to families with children not yet potty-trained from Santa Cruz to Contra Costa County. Many of the 3,000 customers sign up for the service because of environmental concerns, Tiny Tots Diaper Service co-owner Tim Aagard says.
"We give our customers a survey to fill out, which asks, 'What is a main reason why you are choosing cotton?' [Respondents] gave nine choices, but the number one reason is the effect of single-use diapers on the environment," he says.
"When you use cloth diapers you create zero percent garbage," Tim adds. "But paper diapers are 100 percent garbage and do not biodegrade in the landfills."
Tim, 46, calls disposable diapers "paper diapers" because the majority of the diaper is made from bleached wood pulp--the fluffy white padding--which is then encased in plastic lining.
He explains it takes the equivalent of 20 trees to diaper one baby in disposable diapers for two years. According to statistics from the 2000 U.S. census, more than 5 million babies were born in the United States. If only 50 percent of those babies used disposable diapers--the Aagards say the percentage is closer to 98 percent--it would still require 50 million trees to be cut annually to manufacture this one product.
There are other concerns in the environmental debate over disposable versus cloth diapers, wife and co-owner Judy Aagard says. All disposable diapers end up in landfills, and although manufacturers claim the diapers are biodegradable, she contends it is not true unless you leave them exposed to the air and sun, which is unrealistic.
Since all diapers are buried in landfills, it would take 500 years for them to biodegrade, if at all, Tim says. There is also the problem of human waste being dumped in landfills because people never rinse out the diapers before throwing them out.
Disposable diapers containing human waste are a major pollutant in landfills. On an annual basis, more than 20 billion disposable diapers end up in landfills, an issue that first captured national attention in 1989 during a New York City garbage barge incident, Tim said.
With New York landfills overflowing, the barge was forced to sail from place to place in search of a landfill that would accept its trash.
The incident was nationally televised and people instantly became aware of the pollution levels caused by disposable diapers, Tim said. When the incident occurred, Tiny Tots' customer base shot up from 6,000 to 15,000 clients, requiring the business to open a larger laundering facility in Turlock, which is two hours away from its Campbell headquarters.
But since that time business has decreased, as major manufacturers such as Procter & Gamble and Kimberley Clarke market their diapers as healthier alternatives, super absorbent and more convenient, Tim says.
Issues with super absorbency are a concern, 45-year-old Judy says, citing studies that document the chemicals used in diapers can lead to asthma and greater occurrences of diaper rash because babies are not changed as frequently.
Several independent studies discussed at the American Public Health Association's National Convention cite startling increases in diaper rashes, the Aagards say, from 7 percent in 1955 to 78 percent in 1991.
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Messy Job: Raymond Dira unloads a van of dirty diapers at the Tiny Tots Diaper Service in Campbell. Dira picks up dirty cloth diapers from hundreds of families who live in the Bay Area.
Tim also says users should be concerned about the chemicals used in making disposable diapers.
Chemicals such as sodium polyacrylate used for absorbency was the chemical removed from tampons because of toxic shock syndrome. Dioxin, another chemical, is the bleaching agent used in the wood pulp and is considered a carcinogen--a cancer-causing agent--by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Tributyl Tin is another chemical element used in the single-use diaper manufacturing process; it is considered an environmental pollutant and spreads through the skin.
"People think paper diapers are much more convenient and healthier," Tim says. "But it's a misconception."
But Tim says its hard to get the word out because the cloth diapering industry owns a very small share of the consumer market, which he estimates at approximately five percent nationwide.
The industry also receives limited recognition of its environmental importance in literature distributed by conservation groups.
"If you review the EPA's handbook, there are pictures of every conceivable way of reducing waste," Tim says. "Yet there is nothing about using cloth diapers to reduce waste."
He opens up a booklet from the California Department of Conservation and thumbs through it to show that even though the department touts the importance of recycling and reusing, no reference is made to cloth diapers.
"But there is a picture of a baby in a cloth diaper," he says. "It looks like the artist was making a personal statement."
Many people also think diaper services require their customers to rinse out the diaper, but it's not true, the Aagards say. The customer just rolls it up and puts it in the blue-lined hamper the service provides.
At the end of the week, the soiled diapers are left in the liner bag outside the front door and the service replaces it with fresh diapers.
Tiny Tots employee Karen Sullivan used the service when her children were young and never found the process inconvenient, she says.
"The diapering didn't take any longer and I never had any problems when I went out," she said. "A lot of people think that diapering a baby in cloth is a big [hassle] but I just put the diaper in a plastic bag if I wasn't at home."
The Aagards don't want people to think they are fanatics about cloth diapers, but wish people had a better understanding about the facts. They say some people choose to do half cloth and half disposable; it's a matter of changing the way Americans think, Tim says.
This one product creates such a major impact on our environment and new parents could easily effect a change, the Aagards say. Plus, cloth diapers cost less.
"It's a little frustrating, when you have a good product and it's hard to get the word out," Judy says.
For more information, contact Tiny Tots Diaper Service, 138 Railway Ave., at 408.866.2900 or 800.794.5437, or visit the website at www.tinytots.com.
Campbell, California
