Citing environmental concerns, Dave Matthews uses cloth diapers

Speaking backstage at Live Earth in New York on Saturday, singer Dave Matthews said he and wife Ashley have chosen to cloth diaper their third child, son August Oliver, 3-weeks. 

I think diapers might be the No. 3 piece of garbage [in terms of environmental damage]…so if you have a little cloth diaper service nearby, that’s good.

Dave said that he and friend Julia Roberts — who welcomed her third child, Henry Daniel on June 18, just one day before August was born — have exchanged outfits for their new babies.  According to Dave, the decision to go green was an easy one to make after he became a father.

If you can imagine in 50 years how you face your children, if you can’t at least say ‘Well, we tried to turn the world around.’  I think it’s an effort we should make, and the evidence is growing.

Dave and Ashley already have twin daughters Grace Anne and Stella Busina, 5 1/2. 

Source:  People

Thanks to CBB reader Shannon.

Comments

Awesome! Good for him!

- Christina on July 9th, 2007

i love him even more with this comment…
thank you dave

- keppa on July 9th, 2007

Good for Dave!! We love our cloth!

- flower girl on July 9th, 2007

Good for him
I just wanted to share that cloth diapers are super easy to take care of yourself, if you don’t have a local diaper service (or the money to use one).

- Shay on July 9th, 2007

<3 <3 <3 Dave!!

This is one of the big reasons why we’ll be using cloth pocket diapers with the new baby. I want to set a good example for my children.

- Lorus on July 9th, 2007

That is great, but he should know how much energy is used to wash all of these diapers in the washine machine. Unless hand washed, there is a lot of info out there that cloth diapers might not be as enviro-consious as we once thought.

- Carrie on July 9th, 2007

Compared to the amount of energy, water and pollution used/caused in the making of disposable products? Don’t forget most studies are funded by disposable companies and/or only take old fashioned flats and washing methods into consideration.

- Obsidian on July 10th, 2007

Consider how much water it takes to produce a disposable diaper. Not to mention chemicals, trees, industrial waste. You have to wash cloth nappies of course, but I don’t think it really compares. Perhaps the “both choices are fairly equal environmentally” line is one that the diaper companies who fund the “comparasin studies” are putting out there.

Switching to cloth made my son’s eczema go away, yippee

- Haylee on July 10th, 2007

Good for Dave! We love our cloth diapers, too!!

As for the water & detergent used in the washing machine to clean them, if you have a low-level water washer, you’re still coming out ahead.

Diaper services use more water, b/c they must sterilize the diapers, since more than one person uses them.

If you purchase your own cloth dipes, you can just add them to a load of wash that you’re already doing, and not use any extra water/detergent.

Either way, you’re not taking up space in a landfill with them, which is often the major reason why people use cloth versus paper dipes.

G-diapers brand are biodegradeable and break down quickly, but I haven’t tried them.

- corinne on July 10th, 2007

Washing your own diapers only amounts to an extra few loads of wash a week. I wash mine every other day. When you have kids, you are doing more loads of laundry as it is. I doubt that when most moms throw in their finger painted, spaghetti sauced, muddy kids clothes or spit up covered burp cloths and soiled onesies, they even think about the water usage. We’re all thinking about how we’re constantly doing laundry and are going to have to find time to put it away, or buy more soap AGAIN, or whatever- but not the environment. Just my two cents.

- ladymama on July 10th, 2007