CLIPBOARD : Diaper Delivery Services in Orange County

Cloth diapers used to mean pins, screaming babies and frayed nerves. And, after all that, there was the mess to clean up--unless you subscribed to a diaper service. Now, with the concern about the environment and with changes in diaper design, cloth diaper delivery services are making a comeback.

According to Timothy O’Neil, owner and president of Dy-Dee Diaper Service of Brea, most of the people using his service are parents who want to use a product that is not detrimental to the environment.

“Changing from disposable diapers to cloth is one way for a parent to significantly improve the environment,” O’Neil said. “A baby in disposable diapers is akin to cutting down a tree and, two hours later, throwing it in a landfill. Today, more than ever before, people are questioning that kind of waste.”

Diaper services credit Earth Day 1990 and its “Save the Earth” message for the present upsurge in diaper service customers. Both Dy-Dee and Babyland Diaper Service of Santa Ana, Orange County’s other diaper service, say they added more than 2,000 clients apiece during that year.

Apart from the environmental considerations, Babyland general manager Bill Burton also cites innovations in design as key elements in encouraging people to try cloth. “There aren’t any pins to struggle with anymore,” Burton said. “Diaper covers with Velcro closings hold the diaper in place, making cotton diapers more convenient and virtually leakproof.”

Cost is another element in the disposable-cloth diaper dichotomy. Both services say the cost for using cloth (14 cents each) is about 10 cents less per diaper than for disposables.

Diaper services no longer ask customers to rinse dirty diapers. Instead, the soiled diapers are placed in a sanitized duffel bag for collection. At the plant, a bacteria-retarding agent is added to the rinse water, the services say.

“More importantly, we can treat the diapers for babies who need a certain PH balance,” Burton said. “If your baby breaks out easily, you need to look at the kind of diaper being used and make a change.”

With the growing emphasis on recycling products and reducing landfill waste, changing to cloth may turn out not to only be best for your baby’s behind--it could make a difference in your baby’s future, too.

Each Child Reared in Disposables Will:

Wear about 6,000 disposable diapers

Produce one ton of solid waste

Use the equivalent of 20 trees in manufacturing material for the disposables

Create waste that takes 500 years to decompose

Return to Cloth

Cloth diapers, which fell from favor with the advent of disposables, are making a comeback. The county’s two diaper services say that by the end of the year their cloth customers will have more than doubled in four years.

Source: Babyland, Dydee diaper services.

BABYLAND DIAPER SERVICE

Hours: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday

Telephone: (714) 541-8733

Miscellaneous Information: Delivery hours: 7 a.m. to 5:30 a.m., Monday through Friday

DY-DEE DIAPER SERVICE

Hours: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday; 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Saturday.

Telephone: (714) 996-2229

Miscellaneous Information: Delivery hours: 6 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Special deliveries available on Saturday.