disposable diapers

"dragonlady" wrote

I'm not a chemist, so you chemists out there correct me if I'm wrong,
but I think it WOULD be fair to say that cotton diapers are made up of
organic chemicals, while disposables are non-organic, and generally
include petro-chemicals?

'Cept petro-chemicals fall under organic chemistry, being derived from
living organisms originally.

And I might accept the premise that putting
organic chemicals (ie, natural fibers) next to your skin is maybe
healthier/safer than putting petro-chemicals next to your skin. Heck, I
know I'm more comfortable in natural fibers (silk, cotton, linen, rayon,
wool) than in those "artificial" fibers that have a petrochemical base
(nylon, polyester).

Natural versus artificial fibres is a better definition.

However, they ALL have chemicals, by definition; it isn't possible to
have anything that doesn't have chemicals.


This is very true. In fact the textbooks I use defines chemistry as the
investigation of the substances that make up the world around us.

Jean


--
"And he said:
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of
Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, and
though they are with you, yet they belong not to you." Khalil Gibran

Return address is unread. Replies to firstnamelastname @eircom.net.

In article ,
"Iuil" wrote:

"dragonlady" wrote

I'm not a chemist, so you chemists out there correct me if I'm wrong,
but I think it WOULD be fair to say that cotton diapers are made up of
organic chemicals, while disposables are non-organic, and generally
include petro-chemicals?

'Cept petro-chemicals fall under organic chemistry, being derived from
living organisms originally.

Thanks for the correction; I should have checked with my son, since he
just finished his first semester of college chemistry, and the last and
only chemistry course *I* took was over 30 years ago in high school.
(DH would have known, but he's not here.)

Actually, I should have figured that out, since I know oil is made up
from originally living things; I just didn't think it through!

And I might accept the premise that putting
organic chemicals (ie, natural fibers) next to your skin is maybe
healthier/safer than putting petro-chemicals next to your skin. Heck, I
know I'm more comfortable in natural fibers (silk, cotton, linen, rayon,
wool) than in those "artificial" fibers that have a petrochemical base
(nylon, polyester).

Natural versus artificial fibres is a better definition.

However, they ALL have chemicals, by definition; it isn't possible to
have anything that doesn't have chemicals.


This is very true. In fact the textbooks I use defines chemistry as the
investigation of the substances that make up the world around us.

Jean


--
"And he said:
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of
Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, and
though they are with you, yet they belong not to you." Khalil Gibran

Return address is unread. Replies to firstnamelastname @eircom.net.


--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

In article ,
dragonlady says...

In article
,
Joni Rathbun wrote:

On Tue, 8 Jul 2003, Ruth Shear wrote:


What is cotton made of - chemicals.

Is it?





Of course it is.

Everything is made up of chemicals.

Everything has a chemical composition.

From one chemical to another - thanks!


Air, for example, includes Oxygen (O2, mostly) and nitrogen and carbon
dioxide and lots of other stuff. Water is a chemical: two hydrogen
atoms and one oxygen atom (H2O) (unless it's heavy water, but I digress
. . .)

I couldn't tell you the chemical composition of cotton -- but I know it
has one, because there isn't anything that doesn't have a chemical
composition. The only place where no chemicals exist is in a vacuum.

There is this wierd sentiment going around that "chemicals are bad"; I
don't quite get it, since everything is chemicals.

I'm not a chemist, so you chemists out there correct me if I'm wrong,
but I think it WOULD be fair to say that cotton diapers are made up of
organic chemicals, while disposables are non-organic, and generally
include petro-chemicals?

Plastics are organic polymeric materials.

Banty

G'day

Elana wrote:

Okay, been slapped down :-)

Gentle hands. We don't slap or hit. That's not nice...

Big hugs to make it all better

DrRuth

Ruth Shear wrote:

G'day

Elana wrote:

Okay, been slapped down :-)

Gentle hands. We don't slap or hit. That's not nice...

Big hugs to make it all better

Ooooo, I should have had *you* for Chemistry!! :-)

E

In ,
Ruth Shear wrote:

*G'day
*
*Stephanie S wrote:
*
* I mean, if you change the diaper right away, I cannot see how
* disposables are bad.
*
*In addition to some people's concern about sensitivity to the plastic or
*the absorbent gel, and the fact that it is much easier to tell when
*fabric is damp so you change much sooner, reducing the chance of rash, I
*have also heard that cloth diaper kids potty train quicker because they
*can feel immediately that they have wet or soiled their diapers.

Anecdote alert:

my disposable-diapered 34-month old son woke up one morning, said "I want
to wear underwear," put on said underwear, had two accidents the next day
and one or two the following week, and that was it. That was three weeks
ago. No diapers or other accidents at all since then.

Do cloth kids train quicker than that, in general? I have no experience
with that.

* take off the diaper you see little clear balls of gel on the baby's
* skin. That's chemicals.
*
*Sorry. I have to say this. "chemicals" per se are not bad. You are
*surrounded by chemicals every minute of every day.

Amen, sister.

*I once heard a school teacher teaching her class about "chemicals" under
*the sink being bad, dangerous, nasty. Yes some chemicals are poisonous,
*bad dangerous and nasty. But many are not. Please try and resist tieing
*the word "Chemical" to a negative connotation because we could not live,
*nor even exist without chemicals.
*
*off soapbox well I am a chemistry teacher




--
hillary israeli vmd http://www.hillary.net
"uber vaccae in quattuor partes divisum est."
not-so-newly minted veterinarian-at-large

On Fri, 11 Jul 2003, Hillary Israeli wrote:

In ,
Ruth Shear wrote:

*G'day
*
*Stephanie S wrote:
*
* I mean, if you change the diaper right away, I cannot see how
* disposables are bad.
*
*In addition to some people's concern about sensitivity to the plastic or
*the absorbent gel, and the fact that it is much easier to tell when
*fabric is damp so you change much sooner, reducing the chance of rash, I
*have also heard that cloth diaper kids potty train quicker because they
*can feel immediately that they have wet or soiled their diapers.

Anecdote alert:

my disposable-diapered 34-month old son woke up one morning, said "I want
to wear underwear," put on said underwear, had two accidents the next day
and one or two the following week, and that was it. That was three weeks
ago. No diapers or other accidents at all since then.

Do cloth kids train quicker than that, in general? I have no experience
with that.

Well, both of my disposaable-diapered children did the very same thing
at 18 months, almost to the day. The first one caught me off guard. I'd
just begun to think about potty training when she up and announced she
would no longer be wearing diapers. And that was that. She had one
accident after. My son probably had a half dozen accidents after. And then
it was over.

I still kind of shake my head at the thought. I was preparing to
get all wound up in the culture of potty training but the
kids out did me.

In article ,
dragonlady wrote:

I'm not a chemist, so you chemists out there correct me if I'm wrong,
but I think it WOULD be fair to say that cotton diapers are made up of
organic chemicals, while disposables are non-organic, and generally
include petro-chemicals?

Depends what you mean by "organic" -- in chemistry, organic compounds are the
ones with carbon in them. Therefore, petrochemicals are organic!

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"...children should continue to be breastfed... for up to two years of age
or beyond." -- Innocenti Declaration, Florence, 1 August 1990

"Hillary Israeli" wrote

Anecdote alert:

my disposable-diapered 34-month old son woke up one morning, said "I want
to wear underwear," put on said underwear, had two accidents the next day
and one or two the following week, and that was it. That was three weeks
ago. No diapers or other accidents at all since then.

Do cloth kids train quicker than that, in general? I have no experience
with that.


I think it varies from kid to kid :-).

My DD, who's been in cloth since birth, has started asking to be changed
after pooing, despite the fact that she's still pretty much non-verbal (she
takes my hand and leads me to the change mat, up the stairs if necessary).
She's 12.5 months old!!


Jean


--
"And he said:
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of
Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, and
though they are with you, yet they belong not to you." Khalil Gibran

Return address is unread. Replies to firstnamelastname @eircom.net.

E wrote:

OK, I agree but I thought rayon was "manmade"

A very interesting website:
http://www.fibersource.com/f-tutor/rayon.htm


"dragonlady" wrote in message
...

I'm not a chemist, so you chemists out there correct me if I'm wrong,
but I think it WOULD be fair to say that cotton diapers are made up of
organic chemicals, while disposables are non-organic, and generally
include petro-chemicals?

Incorrect. Organic chemicals are carbon compounds, and petroleum is an
organic compound. See a nice "organic chemistry" homepage:
http://www.iorganik.com/chemstory.htm


And I might accept the premise that putting
organic chemicals (ie, natural fibers) next to your skin is maybe
healthier/safer than putting petro-chemicals next to your skin.

Check out the components of sleepware than discourage burns.

One could argue that chlorinated swimming pools are "bad" for you. They
sting the eyes, dry the skin, etc. However, the diseases they prevent
are pretty nasty, too. I'm not arguing pro or con anything, just that
you use your terms correctly, and to also point out people don't invent
things just so they'll be wasteful and harmful.
blacksalt