Gee...

We went shopping on Saturday and at both the baby store and the food store, there were big displays of g-diapers. If you don't know about these, they could be described as somewhere between cloth and disposable.

The idea is that there is a cloth wrap (with built-in velcro...yay!) and a snap-in waterproof liner that holds absorbent inserts. The inserts are the only part you don't re-use, but they are compostable and flushable. The impact is clearly less than disposable, since, even if you toss the inserts, they are smaller and decompose quickly.

Of course, with the three parts, they are more complicated than disposables. Fortunately, though, they are not nearly as difficult as cloth diapers. With those, you have to attach the cloth diaper then fasten the cover over it. The g-diapers can be pre-assembled, so changing a g-diaper is just like a disposable. You just have to do some prep work.

I'm not sure of the best way to get rid of the liners, though. You should only really compost wet diapers, and I'd want a good tumbler before I do that. I'm not going to toss used diapers into a pile in my yard. Maybe if we had more privacy, but all the yards in our little group of houses just run together. Flushing is nice because you don't have to have a smelly diaper pail. But then you're using a gallon and a half of water with every diaper. That can't be good. Maybe the wet ones can just wait in the toilet 'til someone else comes along. We'll see what works.