Our planet is changing. With issues related to climate change and the environment sounding alarm bells almost every day, our planet’s health has become too serious to ignore.

Yes, it can feel overwhelming, but there are things we can do.

For one, we can Live Less Disposably. The United States is the largest producer of garbage and the second-largest producer of carbon dioxide in the world. Over generations, we’ve come to rely on the “convenience” of throwaways, choosing items that end up in the trash over quality products we can use again and again.

A disposable diaper that your baby wears for only a couple of hours ends up sitting in a landfill for centuries. Babies go through approximately 70 diapers a week, which adds up to more than 3,500 by their first birthday. That’s a lot of trash!

When you use the Esembly System, you’ll only need 48 diapers from birth through potty training — and because they’re made to last, you can pass them on to younger sibs, cousins or friends.

Over the last few years, a subset of “eco-friendly” disposable diapers has hit the shelves. They claim that they’re better for the environment, but the reality is that the majority of them are made from the same non-renewable raw materials (like oil and minerals) and renewable but environmentally taxing raw materials (like wood-pulp fiber and bamboo) as every other disposable. The bottom line is that even the disposables that claim to be made compostable or biodegradable will not effectively biodegrade when we place them in our regular municipal landfills because they lack the light, water and bacterial activity required for the decay process to begin.

The only way to truly reduce our impact is to reduce our consumption.

Wear. Wash. Reuse.

Blowouts: Talk to any new parent and you’ll hear a story of some ultra-messy diaper incident. That’s the thing about disposable diapers — they leak. Often. And because of that, blowouts have become synonymous with diapering. But did you know that it doesn’t have to be that way? Esembly cloth diapers keep messes contained — so you can avoid that particular parenting rite of passage.

On top of that, babies in cotton diapers potty train an average of one year earlier than their pals in disposables. Because our diapers don’t contain moisture-wicking sodium polyacrylate chemicals, older babies are able to correlate the sensation of needing to pee with the feeling of wetness after. Which gives them a head start on potty training.

Using the Esembly System from birth to potty training is considerably less expensive than using pack after pack after pack of disposables. With Esembly, after purchasing your diapers and accessories, the only recurring cost you’ll have is two loads of laundry per week.

Babies are in diapers 24/7 for upwards of two years. Skip the plastics, wood pulp fiber and sodium polyacrylate chemicals and swaddle them up in soft, comfy organic cotton instead. By using cloth diapers, you’re limiting the amount of potentially irritating chemicals against their delicate baby skin, thereby reducing the incidence of diaper rash.