Back when our journey with The Duke first began we were very fortunate in that we received a tremendous outpouring of support from our family and friends. We went from having literally nothing in the way of supplies that were suitable for aiding in taking care of a baby to having everything necessary for the task in not more than a matter of hours. (We'd prepared ourselves and our home for older children seeing as how we had been lead to believe our chances of ever having an infant placed with us were about as good as our chances of winning the lottery and surviving a plane crash in the same day.) While we will always be grateful for those gifts I would be lying if said we got a few items for which we've never had that much use or otherwise felt like they weren't worth keeping because of the fact they required specific, recurring supplies that would prove to be expensive over time (odd that the description of something specific that's expensive over time more or less describes a human being - do better at choosing your words in the future, Robert). At the top of that list, for me, is none other than the Diaper Genie, a diaper pail manufactured by Playtex.
Now that I look at it, I can't get over how much it looks like a turret from the Portal video games...
If you're unfamiliar with the Diaper Genie, it is essentially the same thing as those bio-hazard containers you see mounted to the walls of almost any examination room in a given doctor's office. It's a containment vessel meant to keep yicky, smelly diapers in an isolated chamber so that the odors of pee-pee and poopie don't overtake the entirety of your home. Truth be told, it does a great job of this as it keeps the foulness at bay to a remarkable degree. Be that as it may, what bothered me from day 1 about its design is the fact that it requires the use of interchangeable rings that come pre-loaded with a measured sleeve of plastic.
This sleeve can be cut down to size and tied off by the user as needed
(read, as the child goes through how many ever diapers it takes to fill
the bag). I have seen the resulting baggie referred to as a "Hell sausage" in
several parenting blogs and I can't say that I disagree with that
description.
Don't get me wrong, I love our baby boy but this thing here will make you wish he was old enough to be able to use a toilet.
The design of the device is sound, that much is unmistakeable. My problem is the fact that a single aspect of the Diaper Genie - that being the refills - makes people feel like the only way of doing things is how the product was intended to be used, and that simply isn't the case. What follows is how I was able to take the Diaper Genie, a spent refill cartridge, and use normal tall kitchen garbage bags in place of the sleeves that you're supposed to use in the device.
For this project, you will need:
- Diaper Genie (FYI, this is not the Elite version that has a few additional features; I do not know if this process is the same for both as I've never used an Elite)
- Empty refill cartridge
- Tall kitchen garbage bag (with or without drawstring; I use ones with a drawstring but either should do fine)
To begin, we will assume that your Diaper Genie is in an empty state and has also been depleted of its supply of plastic liner.
Once your refill cartridge is empty, it will look like this - nothing more than an empty plastic ring.
Now that you have your empty ring, take your garbage bag and turn it inside out (the reason for this will be explained later).
Once you have turned the garbage bag inside out, take the refill cartridge and turn it upside down so that you may begin loading in the garbage bag.
Carefully spread out the ridges of the refill cartridge where the plastic liner sleeve once resided and begin pushing in the top of the garbage bag, moving along so that the bag is inserted evenly along the gap. It is unlikely that you will damage the ring to the point that it is unusable as the plastic is quite malleable, however do not handle it too aggressively - it is plastic, after all. You will want to push in approximately an inch to an inch and a half of material from the bag into the ring. The bag will bunch up in spots and this is fine, just make sure that the bag looks to be evenly dispersed along the gap so that no section is thicker than any other.
Once you have the bag fully inserted, the cartridge/bag construct should look like this.
Next, take the bottom of the bag and push it up through the ring until it is fully extended out the other side. This is why we reversed the bag in a previous step; depending on how your garbage bag is made, you may or may not obstruct access to the drawstring if you do not reverse the bag. Once the bag has been pulled through the ring, it should appear similar to the image below.
You will then need to take the lid off the Diaper Genie so that the refill cartridge compartment and the spring-loaded jaws of the device are exposed.
Flip open the body of the Diaper Genie by pressing the release button then take the bottom of the bag and begin feeding it through the spring-loaded jaws. This step takes some coordination as you want to feed the bag in without pulling it out of the refill cartridge. (This should not be too much of a concern so long as you have done a good job of securely inserting the bag into the ring.) Take care when feeding the bag through the jaws so that you do not inadvertently get your fingers into the cutting mechanism used on the plastic sleeves. (NOTE: You will not be using the cutting mechanism at any point during these instructions as it becomes a useless feature with the addition of the tall kitchen garbage bags that do not have to be modified.)
As you begin feeding the bag through you should have an assembly that resembles this.
Continue pulling the slack of the bag through the spring-loaded jaws until the refill cartridge is sitting firmly in the refill cartridge compartment. Again, take care in pulling the bag so that you do not unravel the stuffing.
Now that the bag is fully pulled through the spring-loaded jaws, close the body of the Diaper Genie and stand it upright. If you look down on the device at this point you should have a view similar to this. Note that the spring-loaded jaws still create a seal even though you are no longer using the plastic sleeve.
Re-install the lid onto the Diaper Genie. This is where you'll find out how good of a job you've done in evenly spreading out the ruffles created by stuffing the bag into the refill cartridge. If you've done it correctly the lid will snap in place as it should if you were using a new refill cartridge. On the other hand, if you've got some excessive bumps that need to be smoothed out you'll know immediately because the lid will not snap on at all.
With the lid back in place you are now ready to begin using your newly hacked Diaper Genie! When you feel as though your bag is in need of replacing, remove the lid and carefully pull the top of the bag out of the refill cartridge. If you're using a drawstring bag, pull the drawstring tight and tie it off; similarly, if you're using a flat bag simply tie up the excess. Take the empty refill cartridge out of its compartment, open up the body of the Diaper Genie, pull the tied off end out through the spring-loaded jaws, and you should have a neatly contained bag of infantile excrement! All you need to do then is follow these instructions to refill your empty cartridge and you're ready for duty (Doodie?) once again.
The only downside to this modification I have noticed is that during the extraction process of a full bag the smell coming from all those accumulated diapers can be rather overwhelming. (Not to the point that you'll black out from being near it, but it's enough that you know you're staring into something that resembles the inside of a port-a-potty.) I have not purchased another type of bag to verify this but I believe the usage of odor-blocking or scented garbage bags would eliminate this issue entirely. You could also mount a stick-on deodorizer to the underside of the Diaper Genie lid, just be mindful of the fact that the recessed area between the Diaper Genie's lid and where the bag rests is shallow and may not accommodate all deodorizers.
In using garbage bags instead of the plastic sleeve the capacity of the Diaper Genie increases by roughly 60%. We have been able to go more than a week in replacing the garbage bag in the Diaper Genie, whereas with the traditional refill cartridges we couldn't go more than a few days. When you consider this along with the fact that a box of 100 generic tall kitchen bags will run you roughly $13 compared to $7-$9 for a single Diaper Genie refill cartridge, the advantages of this modification become plainly evident.
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