Ten Reasons Why You Should Not Buy a Diaper Genie

Just had baby? About to have one? You have probably been eyeing diaper pails and disposal systems. Diapers will be a big part of your life for the next couple of years and you do need to have a way to dispose of them without smelling up your home. However, let me eliminate one option for you, the Diaper Genie. Here are ten reasons that you should not buy the Diaper Genie:

Reason #10: No resale value. Once you have shelled out the money for this useless plastic canister and you realize how ineffective it is, your only choice is to discard or recycle it. Who is going to buy a product that held another family’s waste?

Reason #9: Bad for the environment. You already feel kind of guilty about using disposable diapers, why make it worse? Disposable diapers already fall in the hard-to-decompose category; the Diaper Genie then wraps these landfill nightmares in additional layers of scented plastic, so they take even longer to putrefy.

Reason #8: Hard to insert a diaper. When it is time to put a diaper in the Genie (four to twelve times a day), you need to use both hands (so you will have to put the baby down), one hand to open the top and one to hold the diaper, drop it in and do the correct twisting action that supposedly locks all the odors in. You will get the hang of it, but do not expect the babysitter or your mother-in-law to do it correctly; expect to find a diaper floating right under the lid after an inexperienced user has tried to get rid of it.

Reason #7: Difficult to insert the refills. To start using the Diaper Genie, a tube of plastic diaper wrap refill needs to be snapped in, knotted, and twisted just the right way in order to get the diapers inserted and locked in correctly. When the time comes to empty the device, you need to twist another dial that cuts the plastic wrap. After that you need to either re-knot and re-twist the remaining plastic wrap or reload a new tube of wrap. As complicated as this sounds, you will get the hang of it, but it will always be a hassle.

Reason #6: Expensive to purchase. Depending on where you purchase this product, the Diaper Genie System will run you between 30 and 40 dollars. That is way too much money to spend on a plastic tube that does not do the job it is supposed to do. Put the money in your kids’ college account instead.

Reason #5: Expensive to refill. The toddler refills run about six bucks, infant refills are around five. You will need one of these refills at least once a month and you are already shelling out lots of money for diapers.

Reason #4: 25 dirty diapers in the house. The Diaper Genie can hold between 25 and 30 dirty diapers at a time. No house needs that many soiled diapers inside of it. Yes, you can empty it more often, but that is a hassle (review reason #7).

Reason #3: Disgusting to empty. Imagine this: you use the twisting cutter to detach the filled plastic wrap, open the bottom of the Diaper Genie and a long, smelly, sausage-like, diaper snake emerges. The stench is over-powering. The diaper snake is heavy and hard to get into a garbage bag. You do not want to deal with this.

Reason #2: The diapers still smell. The main point of a diaper pail or system is to eliminate the diaper odor from the house. The Diaper Genie is supposed to lock all the odors inside of it, but it does not work. Even when used correctly, the Diaper Genie still leaks waste smell into the rooms of your home.

Reason #1: There is a better way. If you do not want dirty diaper stench in your house, get the diapers out! Ask for plastic bags at the grocery store. Seal the dirty diapers in the plastic bags and put them outside. If you live in an apartment with no outside access, put the plastic bagged diapers in a sealed trash bucket and take it out once a day. Low cost, no stench, it is that simple.