The Best Non Toxic Diapers Guide (Updated 2023)

1. Nest/ 2. Bambo / 3. Healthybaby / 4. Andy Pandy / 5. Joonya / 6. Dyper / 7. Kudos 

I wrote this Best Non Toxic Diapers Guide for the first time when Felix was still wearing them! (He’s now almost 14) My original introduction to this section read something like, “Sure, we all know we should use cloth diapers, but how realistic is that, especially here in New York City where many of us don’t even have washing machines? Thank God for these biodegradable diapers from Seventh Generation!”

This was back in 2010, and I was using cloth diapers about 25% of the time (and my husband was using them never). After doing the research for this guide, I came away realizing that there really isn’t a truly “green” way to use disposables. So I started putting Felix in non toxic disposable diapers only at bedtime or for long car rides and stopped using the Seventh Generation disposables completely.

But I had many relapses before potty training was done, and when my second son, Wolf, was born in 2013, I didn’t even attempt cloth diapers. My excuse: a busy business and two children. At least this time I used diapers I felt better about (see “The Best Stuff,” below).

Updated Biodegradable Diaper Guide

In 2019, nearly a decade after I first published this guide, I hired Dr. Michael Hopkins, PhD, to revisit the guide and update it with some new brands you’ve been asking about. And now in 2023, we’ve given it another update to add even more brands of Earth-friendly disposable diapers (plus a bunch of Sneaky brands!).

Our Research Process

As a scientist, Dr. Hopkins is well-equipped to read peer-reviewed studies and come away with a deep understanding of the nuances of the potential risks from various diaper materials, from chlorine to SAP to adhesives (more on all this later).

After deciding on the appropriate criteria for what would make brands Best, Good, Bad, or Okay Stuff, he made a many-columned spreadsheet and populated it with the list of diaper brands you guys asked us to review.

For each brand, Michael calculated affordability, studied reviews on diaper performance, and double-checked to make sure that all ingredients and materials lists were accurate from the first version of this guide (in the case of Honest Diapers, for instance, the ingredients changed in 2018).

Dr. Hopkins’  final (and the most time-consuming!) step was contacting diaper manufacturers to investigate their use of about phthalates, fragrance, chlorine, latex, and the exact materials in the top-sheet and back-sheet of each diaper.

I asked him to find out if the diapers use bamboo or plastic (and in what ratios), if they use traditional SAP or plant-based fluff, what their adhesives are made of, and what percentage of so-called compostable or biodegradable diapers actually biodegrade.

Once he gathered all of this information, we were able to plunk all 40ish reviewed brands into a Best, Good, Okay, Bad or Sneaky Stuff category, which you can review at the bottom of this post.

Your Most Pressing Question: Environmental impact aside, is there a risk to disposables?

This is the question I am asked more than any other about diapers, so let’s start here. Do even the worst disposables really pose a risk to the baby wearing them? Or is this mostly an environmental issue?

The short answer is, yes: diapers can pose a risk to the baby wearing them. Here are our two biggest health concerns with disposable diapers:

1. The phthalates that may be used not only in the plastic components of diapers but also in the glues, synthetic fragrance, and dyes.
   
   In a recent study out of South Korea, four leading diaper brands (as well as several brands of sanitary pads) were shown to all contain varying amounts (and in some cases, very high levels) of phthalates.
   
   If you’re a regular reader, you already know how bad phthalates are, and since they directly disrupt hormones, they are definitely not something you want anywhere near your children’s privates!
   
   In addition, phthalates proved to be the hardest ingredient to suss out during our investigation. A surprising number of “non toxic” or “sustainable” diaper brands don’t actually make any claim about phthalates, and you’ll see in our reviews below that we note whether each brand is “phthalate-free.”
   
2. Allergens and irritants. TBT, parabens, latex, and more are often found in diapers. These will most likely be present in fragrance, lotions, and dyes.
   
   While this is the least sensational potential risk, good old-fashioned diaper rash is probably the greatest concern for most babies wearing disposable diapers.
   
   The best way to avoid diaper rash (or a more serious reaction) is to avoid any disposables with dyes, fragrance, and lotions, and to look for diapers that explicitly state they are free of latex, parabens, and TBT.

Do We Need to Worry About Bleaching/Dioxins in Diapers?

This is another question I get a lot, and it’s certainly relevant from an environmental perspective. The organochlorines present in the effluent produced by paper mills during the bleaching process are a well-documented environmental pollutant.

However, in terms of a danger to the baby, you should know that the level of dioxins present in disposable diapers is:

1. Comparable to that found in cotton (cloth) diapers.
2. Thirty thousand to 2.2 million times lower than the average dietary dioxin exposure resulting from “low level contamination of the food supply.” (From this peer reviewed study using commercially available diapers purchased in and around San Francisco.)

In other words, we are exposed to tens of thousands of times more dioxins from our food supply than the trace levels found in chlorine-bleached diapers. Does that mean you should buy bleached diapers? No, definitely not—their production is really bad for the planet. But if the hospital puts your newborn in one, don’t worry; it’s not going to harm her.

Total Chlorine Free (TCF) versus Elemental Chlorine Free (ECF)

If you’ve been educating yourself on the best nontoxic diapers/biodegradable disposable diapers, you’ve probably heard that ECF diapers are basically Sneaky Stuff and that you MUST buy only TCF diapers.

(Quick primer: ECF means bleached with chlorine dioxide instead of elemental chlorine. TCF means bleached using any chemicals other than chlorine, chlorine dioxide, or hypochlorite.)

We are probably the only “green bloggers” saying this, but the distinction between TCF and ECF is totally not important.

Here’s why: as we just said, the use of chlorine in pulp and paper mills is really an environmental issue, not a health and safety issue. Yes, ECF bleached diapers might sometimes still contain trace amounts of dioxins, but we are talking about levels that are several orders of magnitude lower than the levels of dioxins we are all exposed to by simply eating food.

And here’s why it doesn’t even matter from an environmental standpoint: Although the waste products of TCF pulp is technically “cleaner” than ECF pulp, TCF produces a lower yield (it takes more wood pulp and energy to produce the same amount of finished product), effectively canceling out the benefits over ECF.

Moreover, the environmental impact of ECF versus TCF bleaching depends on the practices and procedures of the individual paper mill and how the waste products are handled. Recent reports have concluded that the theoretical benefits of TCF versus ECF bleaching have not been realized in the real world and that there is no appreciable difference between ECF and TCF. Scratch that one of your worry list!

What Makes a Diaper Good Stuff?

I hope all of this helps you guys understand a little more about what makes a healthy baby diaper that’s friendly to the environment. Still, there are dozens of “green, “biodegradable,” or eco friendly diapers on the market; how can we know which ones to buy?

In order for a disposable diaper to be “Good Stuff,” it must:

1. Be free of artificial fragrance, dyes, and lotions, all of which have the potential to contain irritants/allergens/toxins and simply aren’t necessary in any diaper. This disqualifies some otherwise decent choices, such as the inexpensive (but, unfortunately, lotion-infused) Aldi diapers.
2. Explicitly state that it is free of phthalates, since this cannot be assumed, unfortunately. But why?

When we talk about the chemicals and additives in diapers, we’re mostly talking about substances that can cause harm to your baby or the environment (often both). Even if these substances don’t harm your baby directly, anything that harms the planet is ultimately harmful to humans, too!

In simpler terms, a non toxic diaper won’t harm plants or animals at any point before, during, or after it’s produced.

Most diapers harm the environment before they even reach store shelves. Every chemical, from dioxins to polymers, ends up in the water supply. And unfortunately, from there, these chemicals  can enter the food chain in a few ways.

Most of the time, such toxins are consumed by hungry marine life, which is consumed by larger marine life, which is consumed by humans. Scientists have already found that chemical-derived microplastics have the potential to change human DNA.

These two criteria are the bare essentials if your only concern is the safety and well-being of the diaper user. (But I know you all are better than that!)

Given the significant environmental impact of disposable diapers, a “Best Stuff” diaper also must:

1. Be either Elementally Chlorine Free (ECF) or Totally Chlorine Free (TCF). For the reasons explained above.
2. Be free of petroleum-derived plastics. There are now enough bamboo and other plant-based diapers on the market to eliminate any brand that uses petroleum in its production from the Best Stuff category, even if it poses no real risk to the baby wearing the diaper. This is a happy change from when we wrote the first version of the Gimme the Good Stuff Disposable Diapers guide.

Biodegradable Diapers: Do They Exist?

By virtue of using plant-based rather than petroleum-based ingredients, the diapers that we’ve labeled as Best Stuff are inherently compostable or biodegradable to varying degrees. Some of these brands supplement with a “bio-based SAP” or with cornstarch in the absorbent core to limit the amount of traditional SAP used. The other core component, “fluff,” is wood pulp (cellulose) that undergoes a more traditional bleaching process.

Many people criticize diaper brands that market themselves as “biodegradable” or “compostable” because:

1. Traditional landfills are inherently non-conducive to biodegradation due to an absence of oxygen, soil, and microorganisms.
2. Compostable is only relevant when you have a way to compost where you live (keeping in mind that human feces should not be composted!), and anyone who is planning to compost their diapers will need to make sure they understand how to do this properly.

Dr. Hopkins and I agree that, despite these concerns, there are still valid reasons to choose a “compostable” or “biodegradable ” diaper brand. Namely, a reduction in use of petroleum on the production end, as well as sending a message to the industry about the demand for more environmentally sustainable consumer products.

Reasons to Switch to Cloth Diapers

Before I tell you which are the very best disposable diapers, here’s why you shouldn’t use any of them, even the ones I can sell you from our online store:

• Conventional plastic diapers contain small amounts of dioxin—a byproduct of the bleaching process. As discussed above, this doesn’t pose a risk to your baby, but it’s really bad for the environment.
• Even if you use non toxic disposable diapers, you’re probably familiar with the little gel clumps that sometimes stick to your baby’s skin when you wait too long to change her. Known as SAP (Super Absorbent Polymer), some people worry about it because it was linked to toxic shock syndrome when it was in tampons. While I don’t think it causes a health risk to babies, it is not biodegradable, and thus not an earth-friendly choice.
• A Greenpeace study found the hormone-disrupting TBT (tributyltin) in many diaper brands.
• I know we are all bored with the landfill stats, but the fact remains that a disposable diaper can take as long as 500 years to decompose.
• In response to the popular misconception that cloth diapers are just as bad for the environment as disposables (a myth propagated by a study funded by Procter & Gamble), an independent report found that disposable diapers produce more than 50 times the waste of cloth diapers and use twice as much water and triple the energy.

The truth about these products is that they aren’t even really flushable. All flushable products must either be initially small enough to flush (which the liners are not) or dissolve when exposed to water. These liners obviously don’t dissolve when wet or they would be unsuitable for their purpose!

In other words, it would be impossible to manufacture a liner that is both flushable and effective.

While they do break down eventually, it’s not quick enough to negate their negative impact on the environment—or your bathroom pipes. Not only will they clog up home plumbing and septic systems, but they linger in sewers and other waterways. Because of the aforementioned conditions in landfills, they may be there for years.

The consensus? Hybrid diapers are an improvement over disposable diapers, but they still are not as good as cloth diapers.

What About No Diapers at All?

Forgoing diapers all together, or practicing “elimination communication,” is clearly the greenest option of all.

Here is a story that one reader, Gillian, shared with me:

I learned about EC from a very hippie friend and initially I laughed at her. Then when my son was about 3 weeks old, he started giving very obvious cues about when he was going to poo. I would wait for him to finish in his (disposable) diaper, then clean him up. I realized that I could have just as easily put him on the potty. I tried that a few times, but before he could hold his head up it just wasn’t working for us. As soon as he could hold his head up, though, I started putting him on the potty during most diaper changes. I figured, hey – the diaper is off anyway! I was catching some pees and some poos, but there wasn’t much rhyme or reason to it. When he started eating solids he got into a good pattern of pooping every evening, so I just put him on the potty. On average, I now only have to clean one dirty diaper per week, and my longest stretch without a poopy diaper has been 21 days. I am able to catch some pees, but I’m still not great at it. My son is now 8 months old. I love not cleaning dirty diapers!