Now That's Poopy: Ebay Bans Reusable Diapers
by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA on 09.27.07
[Correction: See comments section for Trish's update - it looks like used diapers are currently on sale via ebay after all. We are not sure if this is a change in policy, or whether the original information was incorrect. We'll look into it and keep you informed.]
Cloth diapers are a pretty core part of many people’s efforts at green parenting. However, as with any product, even these have a certain amount of embodied energy and resources that have been used in making them. It makes sense, therefore, to reuse resuables as many times as possible – or so you’d think. Now we learn from the October issue of the UK’s Green Parent magazine (which we previously mentioned here), that eBay has banned cloth diapers (or nappies as they are known in the UK) as a ‘prohibited item’. Joanna McKay, an irate reader, writes about her frustration:
“This ‘prohibition' seems particularly unacceptable given that the cloth nappies are good for several children, and also since not everyone can afford the initial outlay of a fill set of brand new nappies. I have contacted eBay to urge them to reconsider this policy and would urge other Green Parent readers to do the same (suggest@ebay.com).”
Hilary Gregson, Green Parent’s ‘Real Nappy Expert’ also responds to Joanna, suggesting a number of UK-based resources that are less prudish about “gently used pre-loved nappies”. These include UK Parents Lounge, Used Nappy Company, and the Women’s Environmental Network’s ‘Nappy Exchange’. For those wanting more adive on green parenting in the early byears, check out our guide on How to Green Your Baby. ::Green Parent::
There are cloth diapers for sale right now on ebay.com and ebay.co.uk. I know that they have pulled auctions in the past for used cloth diapers but ebay has not banned cloth diapers.
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Author's comment:
Hmmm - thanks for pointing this out Trish. Maybe the emails worked, or perhaps Joanna was misinformed. Apologies if we have perpetuated any misinformation - I'll add a correction to the post and try to look into this a little further.
Hopefully I'm not the only one here concerned about the health and welfare of children and find Ebay to be doing the right thing. Used baby diapers should not be something handled at this level. With all the news about stuff from China being contaminated where there are at least 'some' checks on quality and safey, why should Ebay be put on the firing line to be party to the sale of potentially dangerous materials from people that are not responsible for anything? Now, there are a lot of good people out there in Ebay-land, but what is to stop someone from getting a hold of 2000 pounds of contaminated fabric and cutting them in to diaper sized pieces and selling them as 'recycled diapers'? I just can't fault Ebay on this one.
-Lego
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Author's comment:
Thanks for the comment Lego
"...what is to stop someone from getting a hold of 2000 pounds of contaminated fabric and cutting them in to diaper sized pieces and selling them as 'recycled diapers'?"
Nothing, as such. Only I am not sure there would be enough profit in such a transaction to make it worth anyones time. To be fair, this logic could equally be applied to all items related to children, or adults for that matter - should we ban the sale of all second-hand toys, clothing etc? While I fully agree that children's safety must be a top priority, I am not sure that there is any way to institute rigorous safety checks other than at the point of original production.
As for what to do with items that are already manufactured, and whose owners want to sell them on - I think it 's reasonable to ban certain items like if they don't conform to current appropriate safety standards, i.e. the European kite mark, or equivalent, but beyond that I don't know what you could do. I'm certainly not aware of any dangers related to resale of used diapers, as long as they are washed thoroughly. At most, I'd have thought such items should carry a warning to parents to wash thoroughly before use - something I suspect most folks would do anyway.
I tried to sell my cloths on e-bay (I had purchased the Fuzzi Bunz brand of pocket diaper new). My listing was removed since I marked them as "used" (which they were) and the e-mail notice I got said something like "you can't sell used underwear". There are plenty of people selling them by not marking the condition as used as that is what seems to trigger the removal of the listing.
I ended up selling mine to a local friend (less carbon from shipping!) and purchased the next size from directly from a blogger I read. There are ways around the e-bay ban to get your cloths used!
I recommend boiling anything from eBay.