gDiapers

A friend just sent the link for gDiapers, which are somewhere between disposable and cloth...  Little washable/resusable pants with a flushable insert.  Does anyone have any experince using (and flushing) them?

There are several (highly unfavorable) reviews of them at mothering.com. I was kind of thinking about them, but they're more expensive than disposable, which is the main reason we're considering not using disposable.

We definitely plan to try them out.  If we hate them, we'll switch to something else.

Hmmm, how is your sewer system? 

The city we live in recently sent us a letter asking people to not flush ANYTHING other than waste and t.p.  The no list included tampons, cardboard applicators, clorox wipes and condoms.  (Umm, ewww, but I digress.) If they dont want people flushing a thin clorox wipe or a tampon (meant to be flushed), I am pretty sure they would be sending every resident a million more letters about flushing those things.

Also, I am not sure you are really saving yourself any trouble.  You can already buy cheap disposable liners for cloth diapers, and I imagine the covers on the gdiapers have to be washed anyway, so between throwing away the liners and washing the covers you might as well choose either close or disposable, IMO.

I think our sewer system can handle just about anything (within reason!) 

ChickPea, can you post a link to the Mothering.com reviews you saw?  I looked for them but had a hard time finding them.  They got generally good reviews on the Berkeley Parent's Forum:

http://parents.berkeley.edu/recommend/where2buy/gdiapers.html

Also, I am not sure you are really saving yourself any trouble.  You can already buy cheap disposable liners for cloth diapers, and I imagine the covers on the gdiapers have to be washed anyway, so between throwing away the liners and washing the covers you might as well choose either close or disposable, IMO.

This is sort of why they don't make sense to me (not that they are an option up here, yet, anyway). Plus, my main motivation for doing cloth is financial, and the gdiapers seem to be more expensive, AND you'res till adding to the wastewater.  If it's stink avoidance, Kushies makes a flushable liner (but I've never seen it in person...)

This link ought to take you to most of the threads: http://www.mothering.com/discussions/search.php?searchid=2204985

If that doesn't work, do an advanced search and search for thread titles with "gdiapers" in them.

ETA: Most of the threads will start out positive or curious and end up with "CONVERT THEM ALL TO CLOTH DIAPERS!!! BWA-HA-HA!!!" I was also confused by the huge number of women who seem to have toilets that are so old an inefficient that they are probably illegal--someone mentioned a 6-gallon toilet! WTF?

If it's stink avoidance, Kushies makes a flushable liner (but I've never seen it in person...)

I use the Kushies flushable liners with Madeline, and often wonder if I should, in fact, be flushing those ...

[ChickPea]

I checked out the Mothering.com forums (thanks for the link & search suggestion, ChickPea).  I guess I would describe the reviews as mixed, more than totally negative.  We're still planning to try them out - for $25 for a starter kit, there's not much to lose - if we hate them, we only have to use them for a few days, and the little g outer pants can be used with cloth diapers, I think.

I don't want to open a big can of worms (but I guess I am).  The thing is that I've read that cloth versus disposable is basically a wash (see http://www.ilea.org/lcas/franklin1992.html for an explanation).  Both options kinda suck environmentally.  Of course G Diapers suck, too, but at least without trying them, they seem to be less sucky, in terms of environmental impact and laziness factor (which is huge for us - much bigger than cost).  And as far as flushing things, I think the big issue is biodegradability. In a big city sewer system & house with good pipes, you should be able to flush things labeled biodegradable.  The problem is that many things folks think they can flush, like tampons, are not biodegradable unless marked as such.

That said, if we hate g diapers, we might try a cloth diaper service, and we might use the liners Laura and Greschya mention.  The problem with those (from what I've read) is that though they make clean-up easier, they do not absorb all the liquid, so you still have to change the whole diaper.  This is where I think G Diapers have the advantage - apparently, once you get the hang of using them (and avoiding leaks), you can use the same little g pant over several changes - so you end up needing to do less laundry than with regular cloth, even with a liner.

edited to add url

[SarahSarah]

Oh, I know they're mixed, SarahSarah. If you pay attention to usernames, though, the woman who was the biggest proponent of gDiapers on the MDC forums eventually switched to cloth (I think she used gDiapers for 4 months) and became a "They're great for cloth conversion!" type. The only reason I probably won't try the gDiapers (because you're right, both cloth and disposable are bad for the environment) is that they're more expensive than disposable--we'll probably go cloth for money reasons. Otherwise, gDiapers seem perfect for apartment living: no diaper bins or pails or whatever to worry about!

[Laura]

 

That said, if we hate g diapers, we might try a cloth diaper service, and we might use the liners Laura and Greschya mention.  The problem with those (from what I've read) is that though they make clean-up easier, they do not absorb all the liquid, so you still have to change the whole diaper.  This is where I think G Diapers have the advantage - apparently, once you get the hang of using them (and avoiding leaks), you can use the same little g pant over several changes - so you end up needing to do less laundry than with regular cloth, even with a liner.
 

I think the gPants are just a diaper cover, which you can use over and over with cloth diapers as well. With cloth, the basic setup is cloth/waterproof outer wrap/cover, diaper for absorbency (prefold, fitted, etc etc) and then if necessary, a liner for easier cleanup.  The flush part of a gDiaper is what the absorbent diaper part of cloth diapers is, so it means less laundering of the BULK of the diaper, and probably the same amount of laundering for the wrap/cover of the diaper. Hope that makes sense...

FWIW, we use gDiapers sometimes. We also use diaper service and buy the occasional package of disposables (usually Seventh Generation). The gD covers themselves are much less waterproof than your average cover, hence the plastic liners that come with them (2 for each cover) and even still, you can have leakage if you're not changing your baby fairly often. I've had difficulty using cloth diapers with the gcovers because it all ends up being too bulky and not fitting Blue. I would tend to buy your gcovers on the big side if you're thinking about using cloth in them as well.

My two issues with the gDs are (1) the leakage that occurs for boys (in order to fix this problem, you have to make sure the plastic liner fits snugly around their legs and is pulled up above the gcover) and (2) we can only flush them down our one highpowered toilet. The other toilet just doesn't have the umph necessary to get the stuff down. When I'm out, I'm often leery about flushing the gDs down random toilets, so I'll either throw them away or save them in a bag for flushing later. The other thing I must point out is that it often takes two flushes to get it all down. My method is this: open the inner pad and dump the soiled cotton batting out - swish around with stick and flush - throw pad liner in toilet and flush again. With our very highpowered toilet, we can usually flush it all at once, but I rarely encounter good toilets like this.

You can take what you want from this post. Perhaps gDs will be perfect for you. Perhaps they'll be more work than you want. The reason I like them is because I'm not contributing to landfill waste and the cotton batting immediately separates upon entering water so I don't feel bad about flushing it. It may as well be toilet paper.

I know it's not their intended use, but wouldn't gDiapers still be somewhat better for the environment than disposables even if the (flushable) liners were thrown away?  Is a full liner appreciably smaller than a full diaper (rolled up for the trash)?  Is the manufacturing process a little more environmentally friendly?

bumpin' - so, I'm planning to give gDiapers a go.  We did a flush test and all went well, so we'll be getting the starter sets in the mail this coming week.  My question is kind of basic - for those of you using them, what do you do with the swish stick when not in use??  I assume it gets kind of dirty, do you wash it off throughly each time in the sink? or is it more like a toilet plunger that gets a dip or two so it's not stanky and then back to the floor?

I would just keep an ice cream bucket by the toilet and stick it in there. So long as the kid isn't mobile.

[ChickPea]

ok, thanks ChickPea.  I hadn't even thought forward to the mobile child! I guess we'll see have more experience with the swishing by then.

[BOTN]

BOTN, be sure to swish well!  (I'm sure you plan to but you know.) A mom in this mom's group I'm attending used to use them but said they did clog the toilet at least once (at 1 am, which made it aggravating). Maybe it's the super-absorbent polymers doing their thing? Just as an fyi- I know how Berkeley plumbing can be sometimes.

[Zephyr]

Zephyr - I solemnly promise to swish well.  I'm pretty excited and hopeful that they'll work.  The only environmental drawbacks that bother me are that they have the super-absorbent polymers and that you use quite a bit of water to dispose of them.  we just got our 2 starter kits as gifts from a friend yesterday and I tried to diaper a stuffed animal to practice, but its butt was too big. guess I'll just have to wait. 

Ooh, we are going to try these too. I'm also pretty concerned about how our plumbing will react to them. I was thinking that if I can find some bio-degradeable trash bags or use a paper bag to put them in (obviously in a sealed container until the bag is full....) Then I could maybe just pitch them with the rest of the trash and not feel bad about it.. Is that dumb?

I think dumb is the wrong word, but it might just be costly w/o any of the environmental benefit.  Even if you put them in a bag that would degrade, it's likely that that bag would end up in a heap at the landfill w/o sunlight or water.  I suppose the size of the gDiapers insert is slightly smaller than a regular disposeable, but....I don't know if it'd be worth the extra cost. 

I'd totally encourage you to try flushing one down your toilet.  They aren't huge and if you think about the <ahem> crap we flush down our toilets, you might not be so worried.  If you don't have access to any, I'll mail you one. hah! seriously, I don't mind.  the other thing is, if you have composting in your ultracool backyard, you could compost the pee-only ones, if your backyard folks were ok with it.  urine is good for compost.  the gDiapers people say they are compostable, and you could confirm with a google search I'm sure.

[violet]

violet, I think part of the concern w/throwing them away is that human waste really ought not go into landfills because of the possibility of the bacteria getting into the water table.  It's better for them to be flushed b/c then it goes to sewage treatment plants that are equipped to deal with the badness.

And that is my rudimentary understanding of garbage, lol.

Oh okay, that makes a lot of sense actually. We do have a huge compost bin in the backyard so I suppose I'll just compost the pee diapers.

[Petey]

oh riiight, thanks for that reality check Petey. I was so over in the eco-brain that I forgot about the "poop not in landfill" reason.      and coooool! that you can compost them Violet. that's, like, enough to earn your eco-mama badge right there! 

We just got our starter kits this morning. Here's hoping all goes well. Our local co-op sells the inserts, so we won't have to order, plus extra gD covers. So, that's nice.

I'm a little afraid of "blowouts", but I suppose you get "blowouts" in any kind of diaper.....The insert didn't look like it would fit very snugly -- but then, I'm used to the super-crazy elastic legs on disposable diapers. My hub is very excited about them, and I'm hoping I will be too, once the kid arrives.

This has nothing to do with their functionality, but just wanted to add the useless factoid that MrRC's studio did all the packaging for gDiapers. Now, has he actually brought home the free starter kit that's just laying around the office? Nooooooo....... But I'm proud of him anyway!

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