New Iowa City service does cloth Diaper DuDee

Don't poo-poo the idea of cloth diapers.

“They are as accessible and convenient as disposable diapers,” said Ana Loes of Iowa City.

Loes is a customer of Diaper DuDee, a cloth diaper cleaning and delivery service based in Des Moines that began serving the Iowa City area in August.

Owner Andrea Foley had fielded inquiries for Iowa City service for years. Circumstances finally made it possible for Diaper DuDee to grow.

“It's always been in the plans,” Foley said. “I hope to expand two hours to the west - in Omaha - soon.”

Foley, mother of 7-month-old Xander, did not have children when Diaper DuDee began in 2007, but she had friends who did. The friends who lived in larger cities touted the benefits of cloth diaper services - no guilt about environmental waste and surprisingly convenient.

Some of her friends even said it was Iowa's lack of a similar service that kept them from returning to the Hawkeye State.

So Foley did her research.

“I learned about how different cloth diapers are from what I, and my peers, thought,” Foley said. “The pinning, the messiness - everything I grew up thinking about cloth diapers was wrong.”

With covers that slip over the cloth diapers, outfitted with Velcro attachments similar to the tabs on disposable diapers, cloth is both convenient and environmentally friendly.

“Disposable diapers are the third-largest source of consumer landfill waste in the U.S.,” Foley said.

And they are not biodegradable. At the same time, it takes more than 300 pounds of wood per year to produce disposable diapers for just one baby. Disposable diapers also contain harmful chemicals and dioxin.

The environmental benefits appeal to Loes.

“This is something little, something easy, we can do to help the ecosystem,” she said.

And hassle free. A diaper service eliminates the primary headache of cloth diapers - having to wash them. Each Diaper DuDee customer receives a diaper pail and washable diaper pail liners for used diapers. Every week, Foley picks up used cloth diapers and delivers clean ones.

Foley launders all diapers in Charlie's Soap, a vegetable based, biodegradable cleanser. She doesn't ask customers to pre-rinse diapers - not even the really messy kind.

“That's my job,” Foley said.

And, she added, once you become a mother, nothing is “too gross.”

Foley considers education part of her job, too. She has attended baby fairs and leads quarterly classes to educate new and expectant parents about cloth diapers. She plans to host a class in Iowa City soon.

“The more people learn about cloth diapers, the more they are willing to try them,” Foley said.