When you have already made the decision not to use cloth diapers, your next decision will be how to choose a diaper pail for disposable diapers.

To some degree, cloth diapers will give off less odor than disposables, because they are not as absorbent, and parents often rinse out some of the urine, and dispose of solids by using liners for their cloth diapers.

With disposables, you lose those benefits. The chemical ingredient added to the manufacturing of disposables, makes them retain water within the layers of material, turning it to a gel that can't leak back out. This means all the urine stays in the disposable, as does any solid wastes. And every parent knows how much that can smell, even after a brief time in a diaper pail.

So what you're going to want to look for when learning how to choose a diaper pail for disposable diapers, is the most effective system that suppresses odors. A pail with a tight fitting lid is not enough, as odor escapes every time you deposit a used diaper, or change the liner and remove the liner bag.

Two of the better options offer very different approaches to this problem. The Neat! Diaper Disposal System is a “new age” pail, with two separate sections. The top handle pulls up easily, you deposit the diaper, then close the lid and push the handle down so the diaper drops into a second, odor-retaining section without the lid being opened at the time.

The Diaper Genie system by Playtex offers an alternative to simply storing away the dirty diapers. Their system, also easy to operate with just one hand, provides a diaper pail with a built in system that seals each dirty diaper in scented wrap, and deposits it in the retaining section until you change the liner bag.