What Decisions Can Make You Live Greener?

Four Chances for Environmentally Friendly Living

“Living green means considering not just landfill space or carbon emissions but also energy, water and raw materials that go into the products we use daily” (Honan, 2006). In an article from Wired magazine, Mathew Honan sets out to clarify perceptions on greener living, concerning the American household. The writer looks into four common concerns for the average family and what decision is best for the environment. 

For families with babies, Honan asked what type of diaper is environmentally the best. Three factors were reviewed; 1) how many gallons of water per year were used? 2) How much annual energy was consumed? 3) How many pounds of solid and water waste was produced annually? The two diaper choices were cloth or disposable. The cloth diapers were either home washed or sent out to be washed by a service. The largest amount of water consumption (17908 gallons) was by the cloth diapers which were sent out to be cleaned; followed closely by home washed cloth diapers at 6946 gallons of annual water consumption. However, both home and service washed cloth diapers used almost the same amount of energy (home-699 vs. service-686), where disposable used almost double the amount of energy. Honan contributes the higher amount of energy consumption for disposables to the fact that “disposables use a lot of energy to manufacture…” Both home and serviced cloth diapers produce no solid or water waste, where as disposables produce 751 pounds of waste annually, because they “hog space in city dumps”. Honan’s verdict on cloth versus disposable was clear, cloth, as long as parents or caregivers wash them at home. The exception? Drought-prone areas, in these cases, disposables are the best option.