A LIFE-CYCLE INVENTORY OF BABY DIAPERS SUBJECT TO CANADIAN CONDITIONS

A life-cycle inventory of cloth and disposable diapers was conducted b ased on diapering habits in Canada. The pa rameters evaluated were ene rgy consumption, water consumption, raw materials consumption, atmosph eric emissions, waterborne wastes, and solid wastes. The results showe d that cloth diapers consume more water and produce more waterborne wa stes than do disposable diapers, whereas disposable diapers consume mo re raw materials and produce more solid wastes than do cloth diapers. Sensitivity analyses proved these differences to be significant. Howev er, with respect to energy consumption and atmospheric emissions, the computed differences were assessed to be insignificant inasmuch as the se may be offset by reasonable variations in cloth-to-disposable diape r usage ratio, market sharing between home-laundering and service-laun dering, number of laundry loads per week, laundry water temperatures, percentage of dryer-drying and line-drying, and drying time. The Canad ian inventory results were compared to those of three similar U.S. dia per life-cycle inventories. Although they differ numerically on the es timated rates of resource consumption and environmental releases, all the studies agree that cloth diapers consume more water and produce mo re waterborne wastes, whereas disposable diapers consume more raw mate rials and produce more solid wastes; their findings concerning energy consumption and atmospheric emissions were not as consistent. The stud y concludes that neither diaper system can be considered absolutely su perior environmentally.