Cloth diapers Vs disposable environmental and physiological impact

cloth diapers have a smaller environmental impact compared to disposable diapers, primarily because they produce significantly less solid waste by being reusable, while disposable diapers contribute large amounts of plastic waste to landfills that take a very long time to decompose, as much as 500 years to fully break down. The average baby uses 3000 diapers in their 1st year. 3000 diapers in a land fill is a huge amount vs. the maybe 40 to 50 most cloth users have. Cloth diapers can also be used for multiple babies, so the lifetime of a cloth diaper is fairly long. The elastics may get worn over years of use but can be replaced and extend the diapers' lifetime. Once the lining has cracked then even if left in a trash pile you'd have only what your stash was even a large stash of 100 diapers the materials are thin and would break down much faster. Typically pockets or covers would only take a few years to brake down and would take up much less space than the average 8000 diapers contributed over the course of diaper usaeg from birth to potty training. 

Water usage is required for cleaning cloth diapers, but water can be recycled and purified, so it's not wasted. Each disposable diaper, on average, required 9 gallons of water to produce, and once used, it's contaminated and no longer easy to reuse or purify. On average, the use of disposables for 1 child creates 72,000 gallons of contaminated water. Vs washing even multiple times a week washing cloth would only use about 12,000 to 15,000 gallons from birth to potty training.

Also, many disposable even the ones they claim are safe can have chemicals that are absorbed into your little ones' most delicate areas and can take several years from the time you stop using them to no longer be detectable in their skin.