Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 7, 1990 TAG: 9003061901
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: CHRISTI LENGTH: Long
But an itch to start their own business and concerns about the environment led them back to diaper pails and cloth diapers.
Mother Earth Diaper Service has been in business for a month, about the same amount of time the three women mulled over the decision to start the venture before jumping in with all six feet.
"Mary and I had kicked around an idea of starting our own business - we just couldn't capture an idea," Wills said. After reading articles in Changing Times magazine about disposables vs. a cloth diaper service, "We decided at that point that would be a good service for the area since there wasn't one here."
A generation of Americans has grown up with the no-fuss convenience of disposable diapers. But Trammell said parents are now starting to become concerned about putting babies in disposables because of possible damage to the environment. Zeek said she discovered prepared-childbirth instructors and some pediatricians were recommending that expectant parents switch to cloth diapers to avoid rashes associated with disposable.
"The disposable diaper is nothing but a fancy trash bag with a liner," Trammell said, quoting from information they researched. "When you put that next to the baby's skin, you're encasing everything right there around that baby's real sensitive areas," promoting growth of bacteria, rashes and increased body temperatures.
"Now, I'll have to say I really didn't think about disposables being environmentally detrimental until we started looking into this," Wills said. "But when you take into consideration the amount of diapers that are going into the landfills - that they never decompose, they're there forever . . . and people don't realize it but that puts 84 million pounds of raw fecal matter in our landfills every year."
The three women see their diaper service as an alternative for people who are concerned about using disposables but who are pressed for time in the laundering department. Parents may realize cloth diapers would be better, "but it's not much fun washing diapers," Wills said.
For $15 a week, Mother Earth will provide customers with five dozen diapers, a pail, a deodorant block and a storage bag. Each week, the business will pick up dirty diapers and deliver fresh ones.
A minimum order of five dozen diapers is recommended for newborns, but smaller amounts are available at $3 per dozen. Wills said they also established flexible rates for families with more than one baby in diapers.
Trammell has received calls from expectant mothers who want to sign up for the service even though they won't be delivering for several months. "At this point, we have not had to go to a waiting list for our customers, but that may happen."
Zeek, who used a diaper service for her children when she lived in Richmond and worked outside the home, said many of their customers are sharing helpful suggestions. "We're finding a lot of customers that are moving to this area that have had a diaper service where they lived before and are sharing with us the things that they experienced."
Wills said she switched from disposables to cloth diapers for her daughter - now 12 - because of skin rashes. "I don't think there's anything that compares, though, with the smell or the sight of a freshly washed diaper. I enjoyed washing my daughter's diapers. It was a contest [to see] if you could get them nice and white and have them smelling sweet. You can't get that with a disposable diaper."
Zeek said they decided to start out with a relatively small and basic inventory that didn't require a large investment. The women laugh as they relate the story of their first trip to a local department store to buy supplies:
"We walk into Hill's, each one of us with a buggy and we're tooling down the aisles like we're in a caravan," Trammell said. Sales clerks and customers seemed to find the sight of three women with buggies full of cloth diapers somewhat strange, particularly since none of them was pregnant.
They bought 23 dozen diapers that day and have since purchased an equal amount. "We've pretty much wiped out Montgomery County," Wills said. She and Zeek speak of rooms in their houses that are "wall-to-wall diapers."
The diapers supplied by Mother Earth are cleaned at Cooks Clean Center in Radford. "We have our diapers professionally processed. We don't take them home, dump them in the basement and do them in our own washers. There are strict guidelines that are followed with that processing," Trammell said. Those guidelines include the proper water temperature and type of detergent to use "to create a bacteria-free diaper which you cannot get at home," Wills said.
The women stress that their business is offering parents an alternative to disposables, not looking to wipe out the use of the plastic diapers altogether. Some parents may want to use both types of diapers.
"There's absolutely nothing wrong with using disposables while you travel. To me that's just using common sense unless you're planning on visiting family where you have washing facilities," Wills said.
"And there are some people who are going to use disposable diapers no matter what, simply for the convenience," Trammell said.
For now, Trammell, Wills and Zeek are working the diaper service on weekends and after hours from their full-time jobs.
"We approached it from a very cautious standpoint in that we didn't jump in and go dollars and dollars in debt or leave our jobs," Wills said. "We would like to see it expand to all the surrounding areas of Montgomery County and get to the point where we just couldn't handle it by ourselves anymore."
"My only problem is I enjoy the babies so much, I hate to leave the houses" after completing a diaper delivery.
by CNB