>We’re already on our 3rd child
It's mostly in the washing, extended use gains you almost nothing.
Even the most generous LCA (not using hot water or a dryer, and only washing once per week) makes the impact almost equal.
>coal
Regardless of the energy source, 4x energy is 4x energy. If the grid is using wind power, the factory likely is as well.
Feel free to find an LCA that reflects your use case, but don't assume it's environmentally friendlier just because it's popular with a certain crowd.
Efficiencies of industrial scale can be hard to beat at home.
People throw away a lot of diapers.
Also, people don't realize it, but whatever gets flushed ends up in a landfill as well, in the form of wastewater sludge. In what ends up being a volume not all that less than a wrapped up diaper. So you're not avoiding landfill use.
>almost everyone would say that the former is the better option.
Who? Not environmental or sustainability engineers.
Again, if cloth works for you, use it. There are plenty of good reasons to. It's just the environment isn't one of them.
Many cloth diapers now have two parts, a shell and an insert. Typically you can use the shell multiple times, only washing the insert, which is made out of absorbent bamboo fabric.
Also parents who cloth diaper are generally more environmentally conscious in other ways. We have solar panels, a high efficiency washer/dryer, and can dry the diapers on a laundry line for most of the year (pro tip: this really helps remove most poop stains, especially from newborns!). In California I don’t think any PGE power comes from coal.
We’re already on our 3rd child with the same set of cloth diapers, blowing past this articles assumptions. Really, once you realize how much landfill waste you’re saving you won’t go back. It does take extra work but so does a lot of things about being a parent.