<
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/natural-period-products-sustainable-menstruation/>
"We menstruators are trash monsters. Every month, every one of us uses dozens
of tampons, pads or liners. Almost none of it is recyclable, and each year,
plastic menstrual products add up to more than 200,000 tons of waste that ends
up in landfills or gets burned. It’s the classic quandary of single-use
plastic: We only use it for a few hours, but it takes 500 years to
disintegrate.
Like most of us, when I started my period, I was more preoccupied with the
sudden changes in my teenage body than the long-term changes on the planet. I
used the plastic-wrapped tampons and plastic-lined liners that everybody else
used, too.
After I began reporting on plastic pollution and climate change, it bothered me
that most period products contain plastic, and not just in the wrapping. Even
if you don’t buy tampons with plastic applicators, the tampons and strings
might incorporate polypropylene, polyethylene or polyester — in other words,
plastic.
So I switched to period products that were marketed as ecologically
sustainable: liners and tampons made of organic cotton.
However, two issues quickly became apparent: The “ecological” varieties easily
cost double or triple as much as cheaper plastic products. It is worth
remembering that an estimated 500 million menstruators around the world
experience “period poverty” and don’t have easy access to products. Even in the
wealthy US, about 16.9 million do not have the money to buy period products
each month, let alone costly ones. It’s a choice only for the wealthy.
And even if you have the money, the label “organic cotton” on period products
doesn’t automatically mean they are truly sustainable. Most pads and liners
still have a plastic layer attached to make them leakproof; cotton is a very
water-intensive crop, usually bleached with chlorine or peroxide; and we’re
still creating heaps of trash.
“Ninety years since the first Tampax, why aren’t there better menstrual
products?” a writer for
The Guardian wondered in 2023. One reason, of course,
is profit: Plastic products are cheap, and by convincing women that disposable
products are the “modern, clean” way, companies hooked generations of customers
who reliably buy the same product month after month. On average, a woman stays
with the same period product for 10 years."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
