This Charlotte diaper delivery service will save a trip to the store during COVID-19
Instead of having to run to crowded stores to purchase diapers, which can be downright scary during COVID-19, new parents can get cloth diapers another way.
A new diaper service coming to Charlotte this fall will offer delivery and curbside pickup with no outside contact.
Bum Dash is a new app-based company that offers zero-contact delivery of organic cotton diapers. Previously soiled diapers are collected weekly. Charlotte will be the test market for this company.
“In terms of safety precautions (to protect against COVID-19), it’s one less trip you have to make every week,” Founder Charles Douthitt told CharlotteFive.
Bum Dash’s mission is to reduce waste from disposable diapers, Douthitt said. About 20 billion disposable diapers, or 3.5 million tons, end up in landfills yearly, and those disposable diapers take 500 years to decompose.
Douthitt, a Chapel Hill-based entrepreneur and a new dad himself, was in the process of developing the app when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
“Being a new parent was a real eye-opener,” Douthitt said in a statement. “A new child turns anyone’s world upside down, and while we may recognize cloth diapers as the best investment for our children and the future of the environment, adding the additional chore of washing them at home almost always loses out to the temptation to use disposable diapers.”
But Bum Dash removes the hassle of washing at home, making the more environmentally friendly option of cloth diapers just as convenient.
Douthitt said the app will work similarly to food delivery services such as Uber Eats. Customers can schedule pick-up and delivery and pay through the app.
Ivy’s Diaper Service gets a new owner
Douthitt purchased Ivy’s Diaper Service, another Charlotte-based cloth diaper delivery service, to prepare for this new venture. With Ivy’s, he learned the systems and processes of a diaper delivery system that could then translate to an app-based service such as Bum Dash. Douthitt said he will continue to run both Ivy’s and Bum Dash through the year, but in the future Ivy’s may be “rebranded.”
“I want a brand-new service to the market that has a different angle, is more technology focused, where more processes can be managed via an app where more people may be accustomed to using and update the traditional model of a diaper delivery service,” Douthitt said.
Douthitt hopes that Bum Dash can expand beyond Charlotte and repeat this business model across North Carolina cities in the future.
Douthitt has previous experience in delivery service. Douthitt and Wes Garrison founded Tarheel Takeout in 2008, which provided food from local restaurants to students at UNC-Chapel Hill. Now, renamed Takeout Central, the company delivers locally sourced restaurant meals in 12 cities and towns in North Carolina.
This story was originally published July 13, 2020 at 2:08 PM with the headline "This Charlotte diaper delivery service will save a trip to the store during COVID-19."
