Word: diapers
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When Dr. Stanley Hellerstein's two-year-old granddaughter Toba came to visit him in Kansas City last summer, his household garbage doubled. The reason: Toba's disposable diapers. That set Hellerstein, the chief kidney specialist at Children's Mercy Hospital, thinking about the 300,000 disposable diapers the hospital was using every year. At Hellerstein's urging, the hospital now swaddles its babies in cloth diapers that are provided by Kansas City's General Diaper Service...
...garbage glut has prompted thousands of parents to toss their disposable diapers and turn back to cloth. Their environmental awareness has fueled a rebirth for diaper services in hospitals and homes, sending revenues up 38.5% last year, to $250 million. Riteway Diaper Service of Brooklyn, N.Y., has had a 300% increase in demand over the past twelve months. Dy-Dee Service of Washington, D.C., kept more than 400 families on a waiting list late last year. General Health Care, which owns a string of 13 diaper services from New York's Long Island to Phoenix, is adding...
Baby boomers are discovering that cloth diapers are not the hassle or expense they expected. A diaper service typically costs $11 a week, in contrast to about $15 for disposables. Safety pins and pinpricks are passe, since today's diapers can be slipped into cloth wraps that fasten with Velcro. "Everything is there for you," says Maureen Medway of Ringoes, N.J., who relies on a diaper service for her newborn son. "There's no reason not to use cloth...
...diaper-service revival began in the environmentally conscious Pacific Northwest, followed by California and the Northeast. The rest of the country is quickly catching up. Business is brisk at Diapers Unlimited of Kalamazoo, Mich., which is expanding its rural routes. So far, better-educated families have been the most likely to sign up with a service, while less informed parents have been slow to switch...
...Diaper services have been around since the 1930s, but were left high and dry with the introduction of disposables. When Procter & Gamble's Pampers appeared in 1961, disposables held only 1% of the market; today they account for 85% of the $3.5 billion diaper industry. "We were against the ropes in the '70s," recalls Nan Scott, president of Dy-Dee Wash in San Francisco. "A lot of companies went bankrupt. Now we're bouncing back...