Earth Unfriendly

I try very hard to be environmentally friendly. I try to remember to bring my shopping bags to the supermarkets. I try to buy refills rather than new bottles of soap/detergent etc even though they are more expensive. I try to take the bus rather than drive if I can help it. So, naturally when I had the twins, I thought of the best way to be environmentally friendly. With twins, it's even harder. Diapers as it is wreak havoc with global warming. Someone told me that soiled diapers were actually great fire retardents and that made me think about how much they must contribute to global warming.

But as they grew older and it became more obvious that to fulfill their needs, I was going to destroy the environment even more. It wasn't just the diapers.

I breastfed and I still breastfeed because I want to save on formula and because it's better for the baby. But in order to do so, I end up storing milk and I store milk in milk bags. These milk bags are plastic and are not reusuable and we have to dump them after one use.

Then there are breastpads. These breastpads are individually wrapped in plastic and they themselves are lined with plastic. And once again, they get dumped at the end of the day.

I'm sure there are ways to be an environmentally friendlier mom. But it's hard. I use washable diapers but they get the baby's clothes wet and we end up having to change him more and washing more clothes. I could use environmentally friendly, biodegradable diapers but those cost so much more. I could use washable breast pads but apparently, they don't work so well. And milk bags, I could use glass bottles but I have a happy problem of producing copious amounts of milk and glass bottles just take up too much space.

I should try harder I guess. I just have to rally more energy to get going. That's the hard part.

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