Diapers and the Environment
The Center for Baby and Adult Hygiene Products is the only U.S.-based organization dedicated to advancing the personal absorbent hygiene products industry in North America
Diapers & the Environment
The Center for Baby and Adult Hygiene Products (BAHP) believes in constantly working to reduce products’ environmental impact and product innovation has been at the heart of the industry’s environmental improvement. We believe environmental stewardship is an integral part of making high-quality products.
Environmental Stewardship. BAHP members look at many different ways diapers impact the environment. Learn more about them.
Diapers and Solid Waste Disposal. Diapers are compatible with all common methods of solid waste management. Learn more about the methods and the diapers’ impact.
Landfills.Learn more how diapers act in a landfill.
Environmental Stewardship
BAHP members are committed to:
Using raw materials that are safe for consumers and the environment
Ensuring products are compatible with common forms of solid waste management
Using life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology to identify ways to improve their products’ interactions with the environment
Providing information about their products so that consumers can make informed decisions
Incineration. Learn more about incinerating diapers.
Composting and Biogasification. Find out how diapers are composted.
Recycling. Can diapers be recycled? Find out.
Protecting the Environment through Innovation. BAHP member companies are constantly improving its products to reduce their environmental impact. Learn more.
Life Cycle Analysis. Understanding a diaper’s environmental impact means knowing every part of its life cycle. Learn more.
Using Life Cycle Analysis to Understand Cloth vs. Disposables. When determining the environmental impact of both cloth and disposable diapers, you need to examine their entire life cycle. Find out how.
The Future. The Center for Baby and Adult Hygiene member companies are proud of their record on environmental stewardship and mindful of their ongoing responsibilities. They will continue to look for ways to reduce their products’ environmental impact through innovations in materials, design, manufacturing, and packaging.
Diapers and Solid Waste Disposal
Solid Waste Management in the U.S.
Municipal solid waste is composed of all of the things we throw away each day. These include common items like packaging, food scraps, yard waste, furniture, magazines and mail, appliances and disposable diapers. Diapers make a small contribution to solid waste. Many common household items are present in much larger quantities. Diapers can be safely disposed of in any common solid waste management system.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Americans generated about 250 million tons of trash in 2010. On average each person throws away about 4.5 pounds per day, a number that has remained constant since 1990. The chart below shows an overview of our trash before any recycling occurs. More details can be found in Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2010 (.PDF, 1.3M), published by EPA.
Historically, the discussion about diapers and the environment has focused on their contribution to landfills. According to the EPA’s most recent data, adult and infant disposable diapers accounted for about 1.5% of total municipal solid waste in 2010. For comparison, other categories of household solid waste include:
30% – Containers and Packaging
19.5% – Nondurable Goods
20% – Durable Goods
14% – Food Scraps
13% – Yard Trimmings
1.5% – Diapers
2% – Other Wastes
Source: Municipal Solid Waste in the United States; Facts and Figures for 2010, US EPA Office of Solid Waste, 2010
Dr. Rathje also noted that one of the major myths about garbage is that diapers are a major constituent of landfills. People who were polled estimated that disposable diapers occupied somewhere between 5 and 40 percent of landfill space. But Dr. Rathje’s excavations showed that diapers were less than one percent by weight and less 1.5 percent by volume of the waste in landfills. (Rathje, W. L., and C. Murphy. Rubbish!: The Archaeology of Garbage. New York: Harper Collins, 1992.)
Research continues on ways to recovery energy from landfills. A few landfills have been designed to encourage biodegradation and generate methane gas, which is used to produce renewable energy. These landfills have specially designed liners to prevent water seepage and a system of drains and pumps to circulate the water. Under these conditions, the organic portion of diapers would be converted to methane like other biodegradable materials.
Landfills
Many questions about diapers have focused on their disposal in landfills. Today’s landfills are designed to minimize their impact on the surrounding environment. They are built and operated to prevent contamination of groundwater and surface water, prevent release of methane gas, and prevent unstable soil conditions. In most landfills, garbage is added in a series of layers and covered with heavy soil to prevent water from seeping through and percolating into underground water.
Like other forms of solid waste, diapers are easily compressed when landfilled. Neither the diaper’s ingredients, nor the baby waste they contain, can leach out from modern landfills.
Led by Professor of Anthropology at the University of Arizona, Dr. William Rathje, the Garbage Project excavated over 20 landfills and found that it takes a long time for anything (paper, yard waste, and even food) to decompose in a landfill.
Incineration
Incineration is possible in a controlled environment.
Diapers should not be burned in an uncontrolled setting like your backyard or by an untrained individual.
However, burning or incineration in an approved and controlled environment is appropriate, including the use of incinerators designed for energy recovery. The materials used to make disposable diapers are commonly used materials that do not form unusual or uniquely toxic emission products.
Composting and Biogasification
Composting and biogasification take advantage of the inherent biodegradability of organic waste. In such facilities, yard wastes, food wastes, and non-recycled paper wastes can be broken down to carbon dioxide, water, and compost, a soil-like material. Studies show that diapers are compatible with large-scale municipal composting systems that have the ability to maintain proper temperatures for pathogen control – and the equipment to remove plastics and other non-compostable materials. Diapers should not be used in residential composting.
Recycling
It is technically possible to take a diaper apart and recover some components. There are a few companies experimenting to make this kind of recovery economically feasible. The main challenges a company or a city face to recycle absorbent hygiene products are as follows: a) cost to collect the relatively small fraction of household waste separately from other waste and b) identifying which parts of the recovered plastics or biomass have enough market value in their area.
On average, modern disposable diapers can weigh as little as 45 grams or 1.5 ounces, about the weight of an egg. Smaller diapers occupy less space and have allowed a significant reduction in packaging. Overall, the amount of packaging has been reduced by two-thirds since the 1980s. Reduced product and packaging volume also means fewer trucks are needed for transportation, thus decreasing fuel usage and emissions.
Protecting the Environment through Innovation
BAHP member companies have not just concerned themselves with disposal of diapers; they have also been lessening diapers’ environmental impact at the beginning of their life cycle. Through innovation in materials, design, and manufacturing, today’s disposable diaper weighs nearly 40% less than it did in the 1980s. These modern diapers perform better, use fewer raw materials, and generate less waste than ever before.
The most significant innovation has been the continued development of superabsorbent polymers. Compared to cloth diapers, these polymers allow disposables to deliver superior performance and improved skin health. They have also improved disposables’ environmental impact since manufacturers can significantly reduce diaper weight. The graph below reveals how improvements in superabsorbent polymers and other materials have led to weight decreases (Europe, similar in U.S.)in diapers. This means fewer resources are used to make diapers. (EDANA Sustainability Study, 2007)
Life Cycle Assessments
The members of the Center for Baby and Adult Hygiene Products routinely conduct a “cradle to grave” environmental analysis using life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. This process tracks the environmental impact of a product beginning with the extraction and use of raw materials through manufacturing and transportation, and concludes with use and disposal. Such analysis is broadly accepted around the world as the best method of understanding a product’s environmental impact. The chart below shows a diaper’s LCA.
Life cycle analysis takes into account the following categories:
Energy consumption
Water consumption
Air emissions (including carbon dioxide and other global warming gases)
Water emissions
Generation of solid waste
A life cycle-based approach checks if improvements in one category are not negated by shifting the impact to another stage in the life cycle. LCAs can also identify where major opportunities exist to improve environmental performance when changes to materials and diaper design are considered.
The most recent industry-wide LCA was conducted by the U.K. Environmental Agency in an independent, government-sponsored study. In order to compare trends, the diapering period for one child, estimated to be about 3,800 diapers, was used as a reference point. The analysis focused on:
Energy usage
Global warming potential (emissions of greenhouse gases)
Smog or photochemical ozone formation potential
Acidification of water potential
Nutrification Potential (causes ecosystem imbalance)
The graph below shows the results for the years 1987, 1995, and 2005 and demonstrates how there has been a significant decrease in every category. In some categories the 1995 results were a bit higher than 1987 because weight reductions were offset by product composition changes that used slightly more energy.
Using Life Cycle Assessments to Understand Cloth vs. Disposables
All diapers, cloth or disposable, impact the environment. However, life cycle assessments conducted in the U.S., Germany, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Canada, and the U.K. since the 1980s all reach the same conclusion: cloth diapers consume more water and produce more waterborne emissions due to laundering, while disposables produce more solid waste and consume more natural resources.
It is important to examine all aspects of a product’s life cycle, rather than just selecting one, such as solid waste, as the basis for choosing a product. Otherwise, consumers could ignore categories such as energy usage or air and water pollution, which may have a greater impact. Favoring only one part of the life cycle does not offer an overall environmental benefit.
The specific numerical results in recent LCAs differ due to differences in geography, methodology and assumptions (most studies predate international standards), and local energy and waste infrastructure. Despite these differences, these LCAs support the conclusion that all diapering systems have an environmental impact. They all consume raw materials, energy, and water. They all generate some wastes to water, air, and land.
A 2005 analysis published by U.K. Environment Agency (Life Cycle Assessment of Disposable and Reusable Nappies in the U.K.) investigated the impact of three diapering systems: cloth diapers with home wash, cloth diapers with commercial laundry, and disposable diapers.
The study found that:
There is no significant difference between any of the environmental impacts of the disposable, home-use reusable and commercial laundry systems.
No system had superior environmental performance, although the life cycle stages that are the main source for these impacts are different for each system.
All three systems do not contribute substantially to overall solid waste totals.
the global warming and non-renewable resource depletion impact over one child’s diaper-wearing period (estimated at 2.5 years) is comparable to driving a car between 1,300 and 2,200 miles.