If it makes you cringe knowing that your disposable diapers are filling up the landfill, you may want to consider a new service that will soon be offered in Cochrane. 

The Shifra Centre for Wellness (Cochrane Community Midwives Clinic) will soon offer a drop off location for any type of disposable diapers to be composted. Partnering with Soiled Diapers Composting Service, the staff from Shifra are excited to get on board of the grass-roots revolutionary movement that will allow Cochrane and area residents to drop off an unlimited amount of diapers each month for a fee.

Registered Midwife, Chelsea McLeod Schneider, says as a mom of eight she was thrilled to learn that a company is starting this service, especially with recent talks about garbage in Cochrane moving towards bi-weekly pickup. "I heard about this company probably about five or six months ago in a birth magazine and the concept of composting disposable diapers totally sparked her interest. The idea, I think, is totally revolutionary especially with a community like Cochrane that is looking down the line to do bi-weekly garbage pick up. I am thrilled that we can offer an option for residents to take disposable diapers and put them towards something that is environmentally friendly and more conscience."

With her youngest babies being twins, Chelsea has been diapering babies for 14 years and has tried all sorts of methods to be more green. While she would have loved to have found a workable, family solution, she like many others turned to the ease of disposables but hated the way they were disposed of. "Personally I have tried all sorts of diapers. We tried the cloth route but we were on the third floor of an apartment with laundry in the basement so that quickly became challenging, and then we tried another system with flushable inserts but while they were okay, they leaked a lot and were really expensive. So we ended up turning to disposable diapers, but that was a crisis in my mind as I knew it wasn't the best."

Wanting to give compost collection a try, Chelsea did her own experiment to see what she could save from the landfill. "I thought I would just experiment over a couple of months and pull out diapers and start collecting them. So I got into contact with the guys who are offering the composting service, and after three months I had ten black garbage bags full of dirty diapers that we saved from going in the regular garbage."

After her own experiment, Chelsea ran the idea by Shifra staff and being in the business of babies, the clinic jumped on board. Having a wrap around drive away, Shifra thought the location would be great to set up as a drop-off spot for moms/dads/caregivers. "We thought we are pretty centrally located for people to access and thought how perfect it would it be for families to come, drive around to the back, drop off their diapers, and carry on."

With the service being quite new, the company is not quite at the compost stage yet. Needing to collect a large number of disposable diapers to be operational, functional and sustainable the service is currently still in collection mode. "They have to collect a ton of diapers a week so although they are in collection mode right now, the intention is for all the diapers to be composted. So we are getting in right at the grassroots of this."

Tipping her hat to the two dad's who came up with the concept, Chelsea says both are really passionate about making this work and finding a solution.

A shed with bins will be located at the back of the clinic and once registered, users will be provided with a code to access the $25/month unlimited drop off service.  

To register for Soiled Diapers Compost Service, go HERE. Drop off service at Shifra Cente for Wellness located at 118-3rd Ave will begin on Monday, April 22nd, coinciding with Earth Day.