And now to make my father completely uncomfortable...

I guess it’s not until you have children do you really start to appreciate the amount of waste a family can create. Diapers alone can cause immeasurable damage to our environment, in fact one child goes through, on average, 6000 diapers until they are potty trained.

Knowaste is a Canadian company currently building a disposable diaper recycling plant in Birmingham, England that is expected to open in early 2010. Their mission is to dramatically reduce the amount of waste that goes into our landfills every year. Soon, recycling diapers will be just as easy as putting your cans and newspapers out on the curb.

Diapers, however, are not the only problem and Knowaste is also planning on recycling feminine hygiene products as well.

That being said let me suggest an alternative solution, The Keeper.

In forty years, the duration of an average menstrual life cycle, a woman can go through 233 pounds of garbage. In fact, she is also probably spending roughly $2000 in that time as well on feminine hygiene products. The Keeper, is a safe reusable menstrual cup that lasts approximately 10 years, and it’s relatively cheap.

It’s easy to use, safe and approved by the FDA – by the way, I also learned that pads and tampons aren’t even sterilized, the FDA does not require the ingredients to be listed on the packaging, and The Keeper has no instances of TSS (Toxic Shock Syndrome) and if that’s not enough to make you at least check out the website, then I don’t know what is.

In either case, it does show that there are people in the world concerned about this kind of waste, perhaps we should be to.

If you are interested in learning more about alternatives to our convenient disposable diapers and feminine hygiene products, check out these links:

gDiapers - A great alternative to the disposable and cloth diapers – gDiapers are earth friendly and flushable.

Wee Care Diaper Company - Take a look at cloth diapers

The Keeper

The Moon Cup – for those allergic to latex

Knowaste