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or Dinda Ayu, 27, parenting would have been hell on earth without disposable diapers.

Taking care of her 7-month-old son, Langit Tsabit Aditya, she gets around five hours of sleep every day, and says she can’t imagine having to use old-fashioned cloth diapers for her child.

“Not that I’ve never tried to use them before. My mother asked me to [use cloth diapers] because she had used them on me when I was a baby. For her, they were healthier and cheaper,” Dina, a resident of Makassar, South Sulawesi, told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday. “I tried using [cloth diapers] for the first four weeks, and then I gave up.”

For Dinda and millions of other new mothers, particularly in urban areas, disposable diapers are indispensable; they have made parenting much easier. But they come with a heavy price.

According to a World Bank study, diapers are the biggest form of non organic waste polluting Indonesia’s waters. The study, which was requested by the Office of the Coordinating Maritime Affairs Ministers, shows that 21 percent of the country’s marine litter consists of diapers.

It was second only to organic waste (44 percent).

This means diapers contribute more to marine pollution than plastic bags, which make up 16 percent of marine debris, followed by other plastics (9 percent), plastic packaging (5 percent), glass, metal (4 percent) and plastic bottles (1 percent).

Dinda said she was aware of the environmental impact of disposable diapers, but she was still reluctant to use alternatives.

She said her baby urinated almost every hour and pooped around six times a day. Using cloth diapers would require her to wash each piece of cloth between taking care of Langit and doing other household chores, giving her almost no time to rest.

Nani Hendiarti, assistant to the Office of the Coordinating Maritime Affairs Ministers’ deputy for maritime science, said related ministries were trying their best to address the issue, but banning diapers was surely not an option.

“We cannot ban them just like that; it’s impossible, [it would] kill the industry. But what we can do is decrease the plastic components in them,” she said. “Or we could make them more expensive, so people will think twice before buying them.”

Diaper sales have only grown in the past few years. According to marketing and social research agency Sigma Research, the market for disposable diapers is estimated to have reached Rp 14 trillion (US$1 billion) in 2017, from Rp 12 trillion two years ago. With around 4.5 million babies born every year in Indonesia, the sector is expected to further expand.

Environmentalists have said the growing use of disposable diapers was alarming, as the human waste left in the diapers could be dangerous to the marine ecosystem, including fish, and subsequently, to humans. They also take hundreds of years to break down.

The coordinator of Ecological Observation and Wetlands Conservation (Ecoton), Prigi Arisandi, said around 10 years ago, disposable diapers were very expensive, so not a lot of families used them. But companies began selling more affordable variants, and today, a diaper could be found at around Rp 3,000 a piece.

“A cheap diaper uses more plastic, around 50 percent, and more people use this kind.”

Haruki Agustina, an official at the Environment and Forestry Ministry, said disposable diapers required special waste treatment. The government, however, has yet to issue a regulation obliging firms to provide instructions on how to treat this specific type of waste, she added.