I used cloth diapers on all 4 of my kids. Loved them. It doen't really take that long to wash them. If i didn't have the time to fold them I would just use them straight from the laundry basket. MY 2 oldest got the most awful diaper rash from disposables it required a trip to the doctor. With the 2 youngest I did use some disposables when we were out. I can understand day cares not using cloth what would they do with all the dirty ones.
Everything these days is for convenience. Hardly anyone cooks from scratch either. We had 6 people in the house and had less then half of the garbage every week of the neighbors with 3 people. All the boxes and packaging from convenience foods. Lots of ways to make less garbage not just diapers.