Have you heard of gDiapers? They're the touchy-feely, save the earth one diaper at a time kind of diaper, the one that makes even Seventh Generation look like schmucks. Being new to this whole mommy thing I'd never seen gDiapers until last week. Frankly, until I had a kid I didn't even realize diapers came in different sizes. Proves just how very little I knew about parenting before I became one.

So these gDiapers. The deal with them is that they are allegedly more environmentally sound than the regular (non-cloth) disposable diapers. Apparently regular diapers don't biodegrade for 500 years. 500 years. 500. Yes, 5-0-0. Makes using cloth diapers seem better every day. But, that's not what this post is about. I don't want to (yet) discuss the many virtues and otherwise of cloth diapers. The tale I am here to tell now is that of the gDiapers.

The gDiapers go down the toilet, at least part of them does, not into a landfill. The website offered other interesting facts including that once flushed the contents of the g diaper could be used for fertilizers, etc., so by using them one is not only saving resources(such as trees) and avoiding landfills but one is also giving something back to Mother Earth.

This concept seemed simple enough at first. Then I was informed of all the steps involved.

I was standing in line at the Park Slope Food Coop where I naturally work as well as shop (it's the oldest continually operating coop in the country) when I noticed these new diapers. Well, they were new to me anyway. I said to my husband, oh look at these. I wonder what the deal is with these gDiapers.

The woman directly behind me, with whom I'd previously had a conversation about our adorable infant children, piped right up on how absolutely fantabulous and amazing and wonderful these diapers are, and how easy the whole process for disposing of them was.

After hearing her go on and on about it and checking the website I am more confused than ever. From what I gather there are inserts that go into the cloth outer diaper. These inserts are what gets flushed down the toilet. So, it's sort of like having a cloth diaper only taking the process one step further.

That extra step is removing the soiled insert, hauling it to the bathroom, dislodging all the mucky muck from the insert, then tearing it up with a stick (or something) while it's floating in the john, then flushing the whole thing.

Ok, so it's a little extra work. No problem there, I guess, in theory anyway, as it would be an extra five minutes (according to the woman in line) for the environment. She had an older child too and seemed convincing.

She almost had me convinced to switch from my chlorine-free Seventh Generation size ones until I realized something pretty important. The stark reality is that I don't use cloth diapers because they take too much time to put on and off. I am sure that once I got the hang of it they wouldn't take much more time than changing a disposable, but the truth is that I don't know that I have that kind of time, at least not right now.

When I think about the number of diapers I change every day and how long that takes it baffles me how I get anything else done. When I think about how long it would take me to go through the g diaper process, and how many times a day I'd go through that process, I don't think I would get ANYTHING else accomplished other than changing diapers!

At least this is how it seems in my mind.

My husband also pointed out that you have to flush away the diaper every time or have a stinky toilet. And each time a toilet is flushed it uses ten gallons of water. Yes. Ten. At least around here it does. I thought it was three, which is still too many gallons, but apparently it's ten. So if I flush ten diapers a day that is 100 gallons a day of water I am flushing. That just doesn't seem very environmentally sound to me.

Of course one could argue that I change the baby every time I go to the bathroom anyway and double up on water usage. In a perfect world that would work. The truth is baby and I are hardly on the same schedule.

Anyway, I could go on and on about this all day. I decided while in line at the Coop to just get the Seventh Generation diapers and read about the gDiapers on their website, watch the video, read the FAQs, you know. I also thought I'd ask you guys about the gDiapers, since my guess is at least some of you have taken the plunge and given them a try.

If so do tell! I would love to know how your experience went and whether or not you recommend them.

Let me also add that I do have some cloth diapers that my mom gave me for emergencies. I am tempted to use them around the house when baby and I are staying in to cut down on my waste. While I know I cannot commit to completely giving up disposables, I do use the Seventh Generation brand which we all quite like, and will try to use cloth diapers more frequently.