The old cloth vs. disposable diaper debate is flaring up again as a new generation of eco-friendly products are starting to toddle into the mainstream.

These soft-as-butter diapers made of bamboo velour, hemp and wool are not your mama's nappies that leaked, sagged and required sharp pins. They're tie-dyed, striped and polka-dotted and come in vibrant colors and retro prints. They use Velcro strips, snaps and buttons and come in lots of fitted styles. They're free of chemicals, highly absorbent, easy to use and -- believe it or not, advocates say -- easy to wash at home.

And not only are these better than disposables for baby bottoms, some moms contend, but also they're better for the household's bottom line.

Reusables can cost roughly $300 for a child up to toilet training, while disposables can range between $2,500 to $3,000, according to widely quoted estimates.

Mary Beth Karchella-MacCumbee of Wilkins figures she's saved the equivalent of a year's tuition at her teenage daughter's private school by putting all three of her children in cloth diapers. "I invested in my child rather than a landfill," she says. "I'm doing something positive for the environment."

The Real Diaper Association, a national advocacy and education group based in San Francisco, estimates that more than 27 billion disposables are used yearly, with 92 percent ending up in landfills.

Companies representing the $5.7 billion disposable diaper industry counter that the water and electricity used in laundering cloth diapers keep the environmental playing fields about the same for both camps.

Families in other parts of the country -- mostly the western states -- have been quicker to dump disposables in favor of these cloth alternatives, but the pendulum is starting to swing in Pittsburgh. A half-dozen home businesses have sprung up here since 2000 to sell or make them.

In fact, it's this network of WAHMs -- industryspeak for work-at-home moms -- that's selling and producing many of the new diapers. You won't find them at Target, Wal-Mart or Babies R Us, but you will on the Internet from such businesses as Pittsburgh's Dinker & Giggles and E-a-poo's. Average costs for these diapers can range from $6 to $20 or higher, depending on the fabric and craftsmanship.

Despite the updates, getting the majority of moms to ditch disposables may not be so easy.

"I do many small things to save the planet," said Natsuko Rohde, a part-time writer and Shadyside resident who has an 18-month-old. "But I just don't see myself piling up dirty cloth diapers for one week. I also don't see myself hand-washing cloth diapers five, 10 times each and every day.

Ms. Rohde would rather see tax breaks given to companies to encourage them to create biodegradable disposables or other eco-friendly products. "Making a switch to cloth is not realistically appealing to me," she said.

Janet Greenley of Penn Hills can relate. When her first son, Liam, was born four years ago, she wanted to save money. "I tried traditional diapers and that failed after a month," she said. (The cotton ones you buy in stores are no better than burping cloths or rags, she claims).

Then she discovered the newer fabrics. Her second son, Ethan, now 2, has been exclusively cloth diapered, and she was so impressed she started her own business, Hugs and Kisses. She sews the products using print flannel, hemp, Sherpa, bamboo velour and polyurethane laminate, a water-resistant material.

Even so, she said the boys' grandmother "flips out" about having to use cloth diapers when they stay overnight.

The biggest misconception, Ms. Greenley says, is that they're hard to use, that you have to soak them and they're messy.

But the eco-diapers don't require any more care than other laundry, she said. "You use less detergent than on other clothes because you don't want the residue on the diapers."

Alaina Frederick, a mother of three who operates Dinker & Giggles from her Coraopolis home, said the diapers (she has two in diapers including a month-old infant) add just one extra load of laundry a week. The natural fabrics such as wool (used usually as diaper covers) have natural antibacterial properties and waterproofing that keep other clothes drier so they don't need to be washed as often.

She started Dinker & Giggles after buying diapers from Lisa Clarke, a work-at-home mom in Castle Shannon who has operated Green Earth Baby since 2004.

Ms. Frederick was impressed with the personal, hands-on attention of Ms. Clarke, one of the popular appeals of the home businesses. "We don't see each other as competition," said Ms. Frederick, who had about 15 regular customers before taking a break after the recent birth of her son.

"It's a community very respective of one another," agreed Ms. Karchella-MacCumbee, a mother of three who operates E-a-poo's, where she also sews much of what she sells. She turned to cloth after her youngest son had allergic reactions to disposables.

One of the modern pioneers of these eco-diapers is Lori Taylor, who started Fuzbaby nine years ago in South Jordan, Utah. She calls herself a diaper artist. With her husband, they created several lines of vibrantly colored wool and organic products.

She went on to help found the Real Diaper Association in 2004, which advocates the environmental, health and economic benefits of using cloth.

Anecdotally, she sees more moms using cloth, but her organization has no hard numbers. "That's one of the things on our wish list, getting those baseline numbers are very important."

The group also is surveying day-care centers to find out how many allow the use of cloth -- a key in getting more working moms involved.

She's not averse to seeing the new eco-diapers in mass merchandise stores, but right now, the larger manufacturers in the United States and Canada can't meet the production demands.

"They can't fill the orders. There needs to be a huge jump in that industry to put diapers in mainstream stores."

Her organization also supports diaper services, which she believes will encourage more families to consider cloth.

The Pittsburgh region lacked a service for the past four years until A Little Behind of Morgantown, W.Va., recently started serving the area.

Owner Sandy Cress provides weekly pickup and deliveries to 10 customers, two of whom are in Pittsburgh. "I operate very green," she said of the company she started in 1999. She makes her own soaps and mostly line dries the diapers year-round.

The advantage of cloth diapers, Ms. Frederick says, is that once your children have grown out of them, you can resell or donate them.

"Online, there's a whole world of diapering," she said. "There's diaperswappers.com. There are over 20,000 who belong to this site. That's all they talk about, buying and trading diapers. I know that sounds weird, but once you wash them, they're clean."

Partly because of the wide reach of the Internet, Dr. Taylor sees interest in these new cloth diapers continuing to grow.

"Whenever the economy goes down, the use of cloth diapers goes up," she says. "And that's even more so now with the concern for the environment."