SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - You hear it all the time: "It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it."

To say that about Elsbeth Fielding would hardly scratch the surface of why she started Dirty Deeds Diaper Service, a year-old, one-woman business that supplies new mothers with reusable cloth diapers on a weekly basis.

Elizabeth Fielding, owner of Dirty Deeds Diaper Service, has a complement of three washing machines in her School Draw Avenue home. It comes in handy when she cleans and delivers hundreds of reusable cloth diapers to her green-minded customers every week. - Guy Quenneville/NNSL photo

For Fielding - herself a mother of a two-year-old son, Leif - it was a combination of reasons. Primary among them was her desire to cut down on waste.

"One was because it would be nice to convince more people to use cloth diapers over ... disposable diapers," said Fielding. "Our landfill is full and we keep adding more and if you use cloth diapers you're not actually contributing to the landfill at all."

The job also lets her stay at her School Draw Avenue home to spend time with Leif and provide daycare services for two other toddlers.

Using three high-end home model washers from Sears and two dryers, Elsbeth gives each customers' diaper load - averaging 50 to 90 diapers a week - a thorough cleaning.

"They go through a four-hour wash cycle," said Fielding. "They do a pre-rinse, and then a wash, and then another rinse, and then they go through a steam treat - they go to the really high temperature - and then they do a double rinse."

The first rule of Dirty Deeds? No mixing.

"The commercial (washers) that the diaper services use down south are really big machines, but I wanted to make sure my clients' diapers didn't get washed with any other clients' diapers, so I didn't need a humongous machine. I needed a machine that could wash 100 diapers."

Fielding also keeps her ample supply of cloth diapers - enough to serve 25 customers, though she currently only has seven - in the laundry room, organized by customer.

"The machines are very quiet, and they're right next to my baby's room. He sleeps through it."

Fielding recently won the Environmental Business of the Year Award from the Akaitcho Business Development Corporation. Away in Mexico at the time, Fielding asked two of her clients, Shena Shaw and Jessica Mace, to accept the award on her behalf.

"I think it's just great that someone is doing that so that people have the option," said Shaw, holding her six-month-old son, Caeden, who goes through about 50 diapers a week. "If they wanted to explore cloth diapers, they don't have to fully commit to getting a whole package themselves."

"I also like to be environmental, but we don't even have the capacity at home to wash a bunch of diapers like that," said Mace, her two-month-old daughter, Pontiac, sleeping soundlessly in a sling. "Our dryer doesn't work very well. You need the diapers to get to certain heat and then it kills all the bacteria and makes it clean and hygienic."