After a visit from a co-worker on maternity leave, I wondered what my parents decided when I was a baby, Huggies or hemp. I was surprised when my parents said they did all cloth diapers. While mine may not have been made of hemp fabric, many modern mothers are choosing sustainable fabrics such as hemp for their babies’ cloth diapers.
While the throw away diapers seemed like a great idea at the time, it was soon realized that all the garbage had to be put somewhere. The most recent estimates say that depending on the brand of diaper, it will take 200 to 500 years for diapers to decompose. It certainly won’ t be in my lifetime.
While this may seem unrelated to design, it is in a way. There was once a designer who said, I’m tired of cleaning diapers, there must be a better way. And while it may be more convenient, disposable diapers have created a huge amount of unnecessary garbage. Designers often ignore what will happen to their work after the consumer is done with it. It’s hard to meet budgets and environmental standards, but as the world continues to evolve, it is obvious that the afterlife of products will now come up more often. I hope that when I get out into the working world, I’ll be able to stick to my ideals and produce work that looks great and isn’t creating it’s own personal hole in the ozone layer.
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