Andrea Foley probably doesn’t actually love poopy diapers, despite what one of her favorite T-shirts says. But it’s clear she does love owning her own business, particularly one that’s keeping hundreds of thousands of non-biodegradable disposable diapers out of landfills.

Foley, who started Diaper DuDee Diaper Service (www.diaperdudee.com) in West Des Moines three years ago, says the business has helped families to keep more than 250,000 disposable diapers out of the landfill, a tally she said grows weekly by about 3,000 cloth diapers she provides to her customers.

It’s a business that “kind of found me,” said Foley. “One of my friend’s sisters told me she wanted to move from Chicago to Des Moines, but we didn’t have a Whole Foods store, and we didn’t have a diaper service. I kept on hearing from people that we needed (the latter).”

Using a fuel-efficient vehicle, Diaper DuDee picks up soiled cloth diapers weekly from customers in Greater Des Moines, Ames and Council Bluffs and delivers a week’s supply of clean cloth diapers. Foley purchased the customer list of a service in the Lincoln-Omaha area last fall and makes weekly pickups and deliveries there as well.

Not having any children of her own at the time, Foley researched the merits of cloth versus disposables, and learned “how scary disposable diapers are for babies’ health and the environment,” she said. “It just cemented how much I wanted to do this.”

Americans throw away an average of 49 million disposable diapers each day, according to data from the Real Diaper Association, a nonprofit group that promotes the use of cloth diapers. Disposable diapers are the third-largest source of consumer landfill waste in the United States, according to the association.

Between 1 and 2 percent of U.S. families use cloth diapers, but the percentage is growing quickly, Foley said.

“In Des Moines, it seems like it’s going as well as anywhere else in the country, maybe better,” she said. “In the Midwest, we want to do the best for our children. It’s very similar to breast-feeding and how more people are choosing that. I feel that the more that grows, the more this will grow.”

Foley, who said her business began turning a profit after its first six months, believes she’s the only business offering a cloth diaper cleaning service in Greater Des Moines at this time. The limited market size probably would not support two competing services for several more years, she said.

Cloth diaper systems have improved significantly in the past 10 years, which makes education the most important element of her business, Foley said. Her service charges from $17 to $25 per week, depending on the number of diapers provided, which on average is about $7 per week less than the cost of disposables, she estimates.

“The covers are what make this so easy,” Foley said, referring to the reusable diaper covers into which the cloth is folded. “By using a cover, you only have to change them as many times as you would a disposable diaper.”

She recommends that customers have at least three covers, which they wash themselves with their regular laundry. In addition to covers, Diaper DuDee also sells “wet bags,” moisture-proof zippered bags that fit within a diaper bag for depositing soiled diapers.

She starts new customers with a two-week supply – about 140 diapers – before the baby arrives and then replenishes the supply each week. “It’s kind of like being the garbage man,” Foley said. “They don’t have to be at home for me to pick them up – they just leave the (reusable diaper bin liner) outside.”

For the first year and a half she was in business, Foley laundered all of the diapers herself at her home. Last fall, she began contracting about half of the loads to a commercial laundry to handle the increasing volume of business. “I work closely with them and the chemical provider to know the exact process used,” she said. “I’m definitely a control freak about that.”

Foley said her biggest challenge is that many day-care providers are unwilling to accommodate babies or toddlers wearing cloth diapers.

“It’s getting better,” she said. “A lot of in-home day cares will accept cloth diapers, but a lot of the bigger ones won’t. Day cares say that their certifying organization ‘frowns on’ the use of cloth diapers, but I think that’s just an easy answer for them. … We just want to get it to the point where (parents) don’t have to sacrifice (cloth diapers) to get the day care they want.”

In addition to continued steady growth in the Des Moines and Omaha metro areas, Foley is building a waiting list of potential clients who are seeking the service in Iowa City and Kansas City.

“I hope to expand into those markets within the next one to two years,” she said. “I would love to have enough customers to make it worth the drive.”