Christine Bond won't even consider using disposable diapers with her next baby.

Not only are cloth diapers cheaper — over the course of 30 months (the average amount of time to become potty-trained), a baby goes through about 6,700 diapers to the tune of about $2,500 — they'll help save the environment, too.

Sure, there are eco-friendly disposables, but Bond used cloth diapers for Nitya, now 2. So the founder of Moms Going Green has an economic advantage to practice what she preaches: She doesn't have to put out another cent for her new baby, due in May. Between her workshops, including one at the recent Baby & Kids Expo, and her simple home life, she knows green can mean not just environmentally friendly, but cost-effective.

Hawai'i has some of the best cheap or free resources for green-to-be moms.

"We live in the sunshine," said Bond. "It's the perfect place to use cloth diapers."

As she pinned the freshly washed diapers on the line in the lilting trade winds, she stopped to expound on how the diapers themselves and the pads don't need any of those not-so-eco-friendly chemicals.

"The sun will bleach them white," said Bond, who lives in a tidy little house in Kailua. "The sun's the best thing in Hawai'i."

Being a green mom doesn't have to mean being a stinky mom. Bond sprays out the dirty diapers in a toilet-pail gadget, rigged up by husband Michael. There's a kitchen-style sprayer attached; she uses that to hose down the mess. One flush later, the diaper is ready for in a vinegar-scented pail destined for the washing machine.

"I've never touched poo," said Bond, who even makes her own diaper wipes, "except when you're wiping the bum."

She goes further than most harried young mothers: There's no "SpongeBob" for Nitya — "we're trying to raise him without TV," she said. Also, the family eats vegetarian.

"For every pound of beef you don't eat, you're saving more water than in a whole year of showering," Bond said.

And as if to prove her point that toddlers don't need meat, Nitya comes to the table and picks out a raisin from a couscous salad.

Christine and Michael Bond lived on a farm in Puna for four years, so she's versed in self-sufficiency.

"We'd never had money," said Christine Bond. "I've been a housewife. ... We spend our money on a healthy lifestyle."

While Bond might be at one end of the Earth Mother spectrum, some of her tips for going green, and doing it cheaply, make sense for everyone: