Disposable diapers, though a blessing for convenience, have been a blight on the environment; in the United States alone, an average of 20 billion disposable diapers are tossed into the trash annually, and they take about 500 years to decompose. Now parents have another option: shipping their baby’s dirty diapers off to be composted—as long as they get them from diaper subscription company Dyper.
Dyper has teamed up with TerraCycle to launch its ReDyper program, through which subscribers can send back their soiled Dyper diapers in provided bags and specially designed boxes that meet United Nations HazMat shipping standards. When the box is full, parents can download a prepaid shipping label from the TerraCycle website, ship it away, and the diapers will end up at TerraCycle distribution centers, then industrial composting facilities that TerraCycle partners with, and ultimately, be turned into compost used for things like vegetation on highway medians.
The ReDyper program is a new addition to Dyper’s subscription model, which first launched in 2018 and offers at-home delivery of bamboo diapers without chlorine, latex, alcohol, perfumes, PVC, lotions, and the chemicals tributyltin, or phthalates. They’re also free of ink, as they don’t have any patterns printed on them.
Since its start, Dyper has said its bamboo diapers can be composted at home—as long as they don’t contain any fecal matter, and you don’t use that compost for food gardens. After speaking with parents, however, Dyper realized this isn’t really feasible for all parents, especially those living in apartments with no access to compost.
With the new ReDyper program, the brand hopes to have found an easy way for people to start composting dirty diapers.
