In the New Yorker...

[Jeff Wrangler]

One thing I wish EK had touched on is the stuff that looks just like clear plastic but is made out of cornstarch. They had cups made out of that in the cafe of the Arboretum where I worked for a while. They're so much like the plastic kind you'd get in a convenience store I was throwing them into the recycling bin, but apparently they belonged in the compost bin! Knowing Elizabeth Kolbert, though, she'd find some evidence the cups aren't as eco-friendly as they might seem -- the processing method or transporting the cornstarch uses too much energy or something. The way cloth diapers are supposedly as bad as disposable.

Or maybe more generally she'd have something negative to say about all the corn that gets grown in the U.S.

Why are cloth diapers as bad as disposable? They're reusable. They don't get thrown in the trash. What are we supposed to use for babies? 

[Jeff Wrangler]

I'm looking forward to reading the fiction issue. That probably seems strange--maybe it is--since I almost never read the fiction, but I always enjoy the little pieces from individual authors that are usually included.

[serious crayons]

Why are cloth diapers as bad as disposable? They're reusable. They don't get thrown in the trash. What are we supposed to use for babies? 

Well, I oversimplified. When it comes right down to it, cloth are still probably a bit better, but you have to be careful how you wash them. Here's the New York Times on the subject:

There?s no question that disposable diapers create more landfill waste: a baby is likely to go through between 5,000 and 6,000 disposable diapers before becoming potty trained. A 2014 Environmental Protection Agency report found that disposable diapers account for 7 percent of nondurable household waste in landfills. Except in very limited cases, disposable diapers (regardless of what they claim) won?t compost or biodegrade in a landfill.

But disposable diaper advocates have countered that the energy and water costs of laundering cloth diapers, as well as the environmental impact of cotton production, make them less environmentally friendly than they appear, particularly in terms of the carbon emissions traceable to their care. The best life-cycle analysis we?ve found is a 2008 report (PDF) from the Environment Agency in the UK that compared the manufacturing, disposal, and energy costs of both diaper types. ?The environmental impacts of using shaped reusable nappies [cloth diapers] can be higher or lower than using disposables, depending on how they are laundered,? the report concludes. The agency?s analysis found that based on average laundry habits and appliance efficiency, when washing with 60 ?C (140 ?F) water and mostly line-drying, the overall carbon emissions created by cloth diapering were roughly the same as those of using disposables. But using cloth diapers for a second child or getting them secondhand, exclusively line-drying them, and washing them in fuller loads could reduce that amount by up to 40 percent.

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/cloth-vs-disposable-diapers/

[Jeff Wrangler]

Thanks. I never gave a thought to the "peripherals"--manufacturing, and so forth, for example. I was just thinking of all those stinky diapers piling up in landfills.

I suppose it might also help the situation if you laundered diapers the way Alma would have.  (Cue Alma with the washboard.) 

[Jeff Wrangler]

I cannot wait to read the article on the penis enlargement industry. 

That was OK, even somewhat horrifying, though I think perhaps the best part was mention of people who apparently are really named Run Wang, Dick Glass, and Semen Brodsky.

[serious crayons]

Thanks. I never gave a thought to the "peripherals"--manufacturing, and so forth, for example. I was just thinking of all those stinky diapers piling up in landfills.

I suppose it might also help the situation if you laundered diapers the way Alma would have.  (Cue Alma with the washboard.) 

When my kids were babies I had a disposal container called a Diaper Genie. You could shove a disposable diaper inside it, turn something, and it would encase the used diaper in plastic, twisting the end. Repeat for next diaper, each one becoming a link in a sausage-like chain of plastic wrapped diapers. When the container was filled, you'd cut the chain, put it in the regular garbage and start over. The diapers didn't stink much (though smell wasn't completely obliterated). But of course that's even more environmentally unfriendly. 

[Jeff Wrangler]

When my kids were babies I had a disposal container called a Diaper Genie. You could shove a disposable diaper inside it, turn something, and it would encase the used diaper in plastic, twisting the end. Repeat for next diaper, each one becoming a link in a sausage-like chain of plastic wrapped diapers. When the container was filled, you'd cut the chain, put it in the regular garbage and start over. The diapers didn't stink much (though smell wasn't completely obliterated). But of course that's even more environmentally unfriendly. 

Oh, dear. ... 

Diaper Genie? 

[Jeff Wrangler]

I always read Peter Hessler. I just finished his piece about his twin daughters attending a Chinese primary school (July 3).

I think maybe what interested me most was reading at the end of the article that he and his family are now living in Ridgway, Colorado. That's on highway 550, which among other sections runs north through Durango and Silverton. I'm sure OCD and I drove right through Ridgway on that highway when we went to Durango to ride the railroad from Durango to Silverton--12 years ago. ... 

I wonder what Hessler and his wife are doing now? And how did they end up settling in Ridgway? It seems so out-of-the-way.

[serious crayons]

I always read Peter Hessler. I just finished his piece about his twin daughters attending a Chinese primary school (July 3).

I think maybe what interested me most was reading at the end of the article that he and his family are now living in Ridgway, Colorado. That's on highway 550, which among other sections runs north through Durango and Silverton. I'm sure OCD and I drove right through Ridgway on that highwaybwhen we went to Durango to ride the railroad from Durango to Silverton--12 years ago. ... 

I wonder what Hessler and his wife are doing now? And how did they end up settling in Ridgway? It seems so out-of-the-way.

It's weird by someone who's written four books about China and one about Egypt, whose wife has also written books about China. Lived in exotic locales and then they moved ... to Omaha.

kidding -- I just looked up Ridgway and although it's kind of out there it looks like a potentially cool place to live. (Not as big-cityish as Omaha, though, which is actually said to be cooler than its reputation would suggest.)

I only know anything about Peter Hessler because I just now looked him up. I don't know if I've read anything by him. I know I'm a narrow-minded parochial American but I'd probably consider articles about China kind of duty-ish. I'll look at this latest one, though.

[Jeff Wrangler]

I only know anything about Peter Hessler because I just now looked him up. I don't know if I've read anything by him. I know I'm a narrow-minded parochial American but I'd probably consider articles about China kind of duty-ish. I'll look at this latest one, though.

I don't know how I started reading him years ago. I remember that he was in Egypt during the Arab Spring. My interest in daily life in China is pretty much limited to his TNY articles.

One of the most useful things I've learned from reading him is that some factories in China sell things on eBay under several different user names--yet they're all the same company.