New obsession: Cloth diapers

Ever since I first blogged about gDiapers, I have been fascinated with researching the various kinds of cloth diapers that are now on the market. Don't make the mistake of Google-ing "cloth diapers", because you'll get sucked into the same 3-hour research-fest that led me to this entry.

Fleece, Flannel, Hemp, Bamboo, Cotton...Pre-Fold, Inserts, Liners, Covers, AIO's, Pocket Diapers...Kushies, BumGenius, Fuzzi Bunz...It's all so dizzying. But still fascinating.

I've even heard that some gDiaper lovers use cloth inserts in their gDiaper covers while at home, but then use the flushable inserts when they're out travelling or when baby's with a sitter. I even found this cloth diaper that is similar to the gDiaper, but with a pocket diaper design:

They're cute, no? And the poopie issue is starting to fade (just a little) with me, when I consider how much less waste I'll still be preventing from landfills. I didn't even know that there are special diaper sprayers that attach to your toilet for rinsing soiled diapers. Gone are the days of swishing a poopie diaper around in the toilet water. Will I actually have time to rinse every poopie and do laundry every two days? Time will tell. Many people, including working mothers, have made it work for them.

There are two big reasons for this new fascination of mine: Environment and Money (of course, everything comes down to money nowadays). Even though cloth diapers require water and energy to clean, at least water is a sustainable, treatable source from nature, and I could save energy by line-drying them. In contrast, disposables eat through non-sustainable forests for the wood pulp filling all the time, as well as incorporate bleach and plastics into their materials. As for cost, estimates show that disposable diapers will run approximately $50-$80/month vs. laundering your own cloth diapers costs approximately $25-$60/month. gDiapers exclusively would run about $95/month, which I'm sure they'll say is the price you pay for being so Earth-friendly.

So what's my choice? I want to try out the gDiapers for sure, but I'm probably going to buy a few cloth inserts to try out with it. Once I find out from the manufacturers which brand/size of cloth inserts fit best in the gDiaper covers, I'll probably register for them when that time comes. And maybe a couple rolls of flushable diaper liners to make it easier to flush the poopie. Will I totally abandon the idea of disposable? Nope. I'm still realistic about that. But I don't think I'll plan on using them 24/7.
What do you think? Let's get some comments going, people!