Wash, Rinse, Repeat

As a devout cloth-diapering mother, my every-other-nightly ritual is spending some quality time with the washing machine. I wash twice - one cold, one hot - then rinse, then dry every other day and have for the past 10 months. We chose to cloth diaper our child for many reasons, but namely to keep thousands of diapers out of the landfill. I mean, we have to save the planet in some way since our choice to have a child and the impact of his life increases our environmental "footprint" that much more (sorry, kiddo, it's true.)
I visited our county landfill for the first time last month and it was a sobering experience (not in the least for the putrid rotting stench hovering). My visualization was something along the lines of the much talked about landfills outside of Mexico City where children make a living (and sometimes die) sifting through other people's trash. I envisioned miles and miles of filthy waste...an ugly gash in some mountain valley.
What I found was just a piece of that (without the children sifting, of course). Driving in I was amazed at the tidiness and very planned, non-landfill look and was actually hopeful that it wouldn't be the horrible experience I had imagined. There were trees, clean roadways, grassy hillsides, nice signage. But I only had to drive up and around the bumpy road, past methane vents and side access roads to meet the real dump. We pulled up between a semi and a trash truck to unload some yard waste (ok, a rusted out grill and metal fencing) and I just sat and watched what the others were dumping. The semi was the most disturbing, as it was unloaded what seemed to be a full load of orange juice gallons - full, unused, possibly expired, but still hundreds of cases of orange juice. How many people could've enjoyed some vitamins and minerals provided through that orange juice that just got thrown away! Let alone the cardboard boxes and plastic jugs it came in! It reminded me of a very American habit of over-producing (such as the case with corn, wheat, potatoes and other such staples) and discarding or let rot what doesn't get used, instead of finding, oh I don't know, starving Africans to give it to.
Then the trash truck was full of aluminum cans, plastic bottles, paper, newspaper and the usual torn, broken, unwanted trash. I was afraid to look any further, but just noticed as the trash truck pulled away how the ground oozed beneath its weight. We were on top of thousands of pounds of bags of other peoples trash - put there without thinking where it was actually going and how long that space would last and how many other spaces on this planet serve the same purpose. It still boggles my mind that people don't recycle. Sure, some say it's a conspiracy and doesn't really "work." But I say we only put one bag of trash in our bin every week, whereas when when used disposable diapers it was at least two. Our recycling bin is always overflowing for the bi-weekly pickup (as are most of our neighbors).
So, yes, although our water bill is significantly higher and my evenings significantly more routine and I have to shake and separate poopy diapers, I am glad we do cloth for our child. It's the least we can do.