I was reading somewhere how diapers (for infants/children, not the adult kind) were a hot commodity in situations involving interruptions in services.

It got me thinking about stocking up on some diapers even if you don't have children - for barter.

Say there's a major interruption in services, but folks wouldn't necessarily bug out.

Diapers have an unlimited shelf life and would be in high demand by parents with little ones.

I wonder if diapers would be such a hot item that their value would soar in a situation like that.

Think it would be worth having a few hundred on hand to trade with others?

If things really got that bad, I think people would go back to using cloth diapers instead of giving up everything they have for a disposable commodity.

Hmmm, not wild about the idea for several reasons:
1. They are bulky.
2. You'd need to stock several different sizes in hopes of having the right size on hand.
3. You'd need to encounter someone looking for diapers that had something you wanted. If they don't have diapers they probably don't have anything you'd want.
4. It takes a fair number of diapers to get a baby through the day, one or two would rarely be enough.
5. Karma.

However, they might be worth having on hand for good-will gifts.

Overall, I think there's a lot of better barter items out there.

-Blast, giving the opinion of a parent

Sorry, I may be in the minority on this but hoarding diapers just seems evil to me. And diapers are also incredibly bulky and one can easily go through 10 a day. You're not going to be traveling with this vast quantity of disposable wealth. (I'm just going to assume you don't have kids.)

We survived as a species for a few hundred thousand years without modern diapers. I suspect most people would rediscover the "joys" of cloth or that potty training would gain a new incentive.

Fortunately, places like CostCo allow those who can afford them to stock up on huge quantities of diapers these days.

And if water/toilet services are interrupted, cities are going to become very nasty places very quickly...

They don't have an unlimeted shelf life, theu actually do degrade after a while, the stuff in them to absorb liquid degrades as well as the paper they are made of.
We had some left overs from our first child that we had to throw out before we could use for our second.

I never got the need to sotre items for barter anyway, why not use the space to store more of what you will need rather than what you think someone else might.

Is some one trying to make money on a bad situation?

(I wonder if diapers would be such a hot item that their value would soar in a situation like that.)

Hoarding also can make you a target in theory.

Some states (I hear) have anti-hoarding legislation in times of a disaster...or at least the ability to enforce such things if martial law were invoked.

I know what I'd be throwing at someone hoarding diapers...

Plus what happens if you have a lady friend over and she goes into the wrong door looking for the bathroom and notices that you have a stash of 400 diapers. Unless you're into some crazy stuff, that's your last date for sure.

Well I wouldn't necessarily be looking to profit. I guess I was thinking in terms of simplification maybe?

It might be something to cover the unexpected. Since it's tough to plan for any and every situation - perhaps having some sort of commodity that you yourself don't need as sort of back-up that could be used...

One could stock up on guns and ammo too for future barter opportunities. But that's expensive and could raise some eyebrows with the law if you had a large cache of that.

IDK, just got me thinking about creative ways to prepare. Just wondered what others thought about it.

What would be a good item to have a stock of that one could use for barter?

Or, is it just plain silly to plan for bartering?