I will not say who asked me this question, though it did make me a little angry.  I want to answer it with due respect not only to the one who asked it but also to all my colleagues working in the disposables industry.  I do not believe I am giving away our “jealously guarded” secrets.  Believe me, this website is just the very tip of the iceberg.   Making diapers is much more than a little history, a production description and a few test methods.   I believe it is much better to inform the public properly than having dozens of new competitors, who thought that making diapers was an easy adventure, ending up loosing their money and messing up our markets. There is nothing worse than an uneducated competitor.  Look at what has happened recently in Brazil during the 90’s, where the birth of literally 100’s of new players damaged the market so much that nobody was making money anymore. Fortunately things are much better in Brazil now.  Similar things happened in Argentina. Normalcy may come faster in Brazil if the government provides proper tax controls which were, in part, responsible for the situation.  Argentina’s economy is also getting back under control now.

I believe it is much better to have new competitors who are business oriented, instead of gamblers without the slightest idea of what this industry is all about.  I have seen the same story repeating in different areas of the world. The pity is that many hard working people loose their patrimony because no one warned them or helped them understand before they invested their money in a silly adventure.  As incredible as this may seem, some people are more willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in a buying a new diaper machine but are afraid or even avoid spending a couple of thousand dollars in good advice.  There is a list of diaper industry consultants here: diaper consultants.