Paper or Plastic, Saving Penises, and Breastfeeding Raps

June 15th, 2010 by Dionna | 5 Comments
Posted in Just for Fun/Miscellaneous

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Tee Towels

I am super stoked to have a guest post over at Woman Uncensored today. The subject? Switching to cloth.

Did you know that the average American uses over 100 single rolls of toilet paper every year?
And 2200 paper napkins?
Did you know that, on average, you will use at least 4,000 disposable baby wipes on your child during the approximately 2.5 years that s/he is in diapers? (Baby wipes are full of chemicals and cannot be recycled or composted, by the way.)

If everyone who reads my guest post makes just one change from paper to cloth, we could have a major impact on the environment!

Switching to cloth can save billions of pounds of paper and plastic from entering our landfills. It can drastically reduce the amount of toxic chemicals that touch your child’s skin and contaminate our Earth. It can achieve world peace. (Ok, maybe not that last one.)

So please, stop by and get educated. It’s fascinating stuff, I promise.

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What’s even better? I have donated some of my homemade cloth wipes and cloth towels for an online auction. The auction is to raise money that will go toward sending information packets to expecting parents about keeping their child intact. Please click on the widget below to read more about the Saving Penises auction.

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We’ve covered environmental and intactivism issues, we need to include a bit of lactivism in here too. Before you leave here today, check out the new video posted over on the right sidebar. It’s a bunch of medical students rapping about breastfeeding. I laughed. A lot.

5 Responses to:
"Paper or Plastic, Saving Penises, and Breastfeeding Raps"

  1. Christa
    Jun-15-10 at 10:22 am

    The baby wears cloth diapers and we use cloth rags, napkins, and dish towels (even for cat puke, ick). But the one hurdle we have not been able to overcome is disposable baby wipes, even though they’re supposedly better for baby’s butt. Now that I know about all the icky stuff in em, though, I’m going to try to convince my husband to make the move!

  2. daisy   
    Jun-15-10 at 6:41 pm

    Cloth vs paper is a tricky one. I’ve seen some studies that say all the energy used in laundering offsets the benefits.

    Re: “saving penises” — really? It has come to this? I did not circumcise my son, but I did not save his penis. If I saved anything, it was a foreskin. We need to quit using rhetoric that tells circumcised boys that they have lost their manhood. They do still have penises. Orgasms even!

    • Dionna   
      Jun-15-10 at 8:34 pm

      As far as cloth diapers, yes there is a way to launder that is more energy efficient. I would think that with all of the chemicals saved from release into the environment (dioxin for all paper products, others for baby wipes/TP), plus the BILLIONS of pounds of paper that would not be going into landfills, plus all of the water saved in the manufacturing process, would be enough to tip the scales in favor of switching to cloth for other personal paper products. I think the reason that cloth diapers take more energy is because they are washed in hot (and they are often prewashed PLUS regularly washed).
      And saving penises – I’m sure that the name was chosen to bring attention to the overused (and under thought) practice of circumcision. I have no qualms with it. Without going and finding studies for it (if someone wants me to, I will research the issue), I have read that the glans of a circ’d penis becomes keratinized over time, therefore losing sensitivity. I’ve always wondered whether US men had more problems with achieving erection b/c we have the highest rate of circ. (We do consume the most Viagra.) So perhaps refusing circumcision really is better for the long-term health of the penis. Does it save the actual appendage? No. Does it enhance sensitivity and lifelong pleasure? It would seem that way. I’d say that arguing whether saving penises is the correct verbiage is purely semantics.

  3. AFWifey
    Jun-16-10 at 10:34 am

    We have made the switch to dishtowels for all but the very grossest messes (I will not launder a doggie diarrhea towel, I just can’t lol). Also, we use cloth napkins and I try my very best to recycle everything I can even though I have to take it to the center myself. The one thing I just can’t handle is cloth diapers, partially because my life is complicated enough but mostly because when we DID use them my poor son had diaper rash that was literally weeping open sores. I don’t know if it was me using the inserts wrong or the diapers or what but after repeated doctors visits we had to switch to disposables :(. I was pretty bummed at first but I got over it. Now I use reusables in the pool and outside when I can (or let him run around naked) and gave all the cloth diapers we had to my friend so SHE could start using cloth- so far no problems with her son, and she loves them! So if I can’t use them at least I can promote them!!

    • Dionna   
      Jun-16-10 at 2:10 pm

      We have to take our own recycling too. It’s kind of a pain, but it’s also turned into a learning experience for Kieran – he gets to see why we separate our recyclables (we put them in different bins) and we talk about what happens to them later.
      And hey, you tried! I wonder if he is super sensitive to whatever soap you used?? That’s so odd though, what an awful experience for both of you. I’m glad your friend was able to use them though :)

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