May/June 2008 Issue

A Brief History of the Disposable Diaper

Find out when Pampers was born, what year “elimination communication” became a fad, and how long it will really take disposable diapers to biodegrade.

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1948: Johnson & Johnson introduces first mass-marketed disposable diaper in the U.S.

1961: Procter & Gamble unveils Pampers.

1970: American babies go through 350,000 tons of disposable diapers, making up 0.3% of U.S. municipal waste.

1980: American babies wear 1.93 million tons of disposables, 1.4% of municipal waste.

1981: Disposables start using super-absorbent polymers; size reduced 50%.

1984: Cabbage Patch Kids appear on the first “designer diaper.”

1990: Disposable diapers now constitute 1.6% of municipal waste. 7 in 10 Americans say they would support their ban.

1990-91: Dueling studies by Procter & Gamble and the National Association of Diaper Services assert the merits of disposables and cloth, respectively.

1999: Pampers-funded pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton tells parents not to rush toilet training.

2000: Diapers compose 2% of municipal waste.

2005: The ultimate low-impact trend for people without shag carpets: “elimination communication,” i.e. teaching your infant to go diaper free.

2006: American babies wear 3.6 million tons of disposables, constituting 2.1% of municipal waste.

2007: Julia Roberts touts flushable diapers, with one caveat: “If you don’t really break it all the way up, it doesn’t go all the way down.”

2007: Pampers introduces diapers for kids weighing more than 41 lbs (typical for age 5).

2500: Early 21st-century disposable diapers will finish biodegrading.

Sources

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THE BIG PICTURE

You expect the big picture, and it's our job at Mother Jones to give it to you. And right now, so many of the troubles we face are the making not of a virus, but of the quest for profit, political or economic (and not just from the man in the White House who could have offered leadership and comfort but instead gave us bleach).

In "News Is Just Like Waste Management," we unpack what the coronavirus crisis has meant for journalism, including Mother Jones’, and how we can rise to the challenge. If you're able to, this is a critical moment to support our nonprofit journalism with a donation: We've scoured our budget and made the cuts we can without impairing our mission, and we hope to raise $400,000 from our community of online readers to help keep our big reporting projects going because this extraordinary pandemic-plus-election year is no time to pull back.

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