Every month, countless women automatically buy disposable products like tampons, sanitary pads, and panty liners. They throw them away after use without thinking about the environmental consequences. Over the years, the use of disposable hygiene products for menstruation has become the norm, especially due to the taboo surrounding menstruation.
"Over a whole lifetime, the pollution caused by menstrual hygiene products significantly increases, and it takes hundreds of years for this waste to decompose. Not to mention the environmental impacts of their production and composition. There have been ecological alternatives for decades. It is possible to wear menstrual protection in a healthy and convenient way without leaving massive waste for our descendants in the coming centuries."
From "Zero Protection" Mode to Disposable Products
Nowadays, we have the dilemma of choice with all the menstrual hygiene products available on the market. The same product can be available in various forms, catering not only to the comfort of the user but also to the well-being of the trade. However, this unfortunately also comes with environmental pollution from single-use menstrual hygiene products. This was not always the case. A little anecdote: In the Middle Ages, women and girls did not have panties or sanitary pads; a petticoat was completely sufficient. Later, women made their own protection from the materials available to them, such as strips of fabric or soft bark. At the end of the 19th century, the brand Johnson & Johnson decided to offer sanitary pads for sale for the first time. However, the strategy did not succeed: Menstrual flow was still a taboo subject, and women were too embarrassed to buy such a shameful object in public.
By the way, this very taboo largely contributed to the success of disposable products that emerged in the 1920s. They were discreet and did not have to be hung up to dry in plain sight. The Kotex brand pads were made from padded fabrics that were originally used during World War I for bandaging wounds. The first tampon with an applicator was patented in 1933 by the American doctor Earle Cleveland Haas.
So it all began. The use of tampons or pads during menstruation became a habit that was perceived as convenient and hygienic. Environmental pollution from hygiene products increased with the introduction of ever more innovative and equally environmentally damaging products: pads with a particularly refined fit, then pads with wings, panty liners, thinner models... In 2018, American consumers bought 5.8 billion tampons, a third of the global consumption. A huge number, whose environmental impact is particularly alarming.
Environmental pollution from waste and chemical substances
In France, women between the ages of 13 and 50 use an average of 290 menstrual hygiene products per year to stay protected during their period, which amounts to over 11,000 products over 38 fertile years. In the United States, a woman generates up to 150 kg of waste from her menstruation over her lifetime. This corresponds to 0.5% of her total personal waste. However, the pollution caused by menstrual protection products is particularly significant due to their plastic-rich composition. Let us remember that this material takes 500 to 800 years to decompose. Therefore, the 150 kilos generated today could still be around after seven hundred years! Plastic is almost everywhere when it comes to menstrual hygiene products: packaging, applicators, polyester fibers in pads or tampons, layers of polypropylene or impermeable polyethylene in pads, adhesive strips on the wings, polyester threads in tampons...
Disposable menstrual hygiene products also contain unwanted, health- and environmentally harmful substances: dioxins, phthalates, glyphosate, chlorine, etc. Cotton tampons and pads often contain traces of pesticides and herbicides and even toxic and carcinogenic substances. This is due to the fact that most of these menstrual hygiene products undergo treatments involving dangerous substances. These substances enter nature when waste is not properly recycled. This treatment also consumes resources and a lot of energy: thus, the environmental pollution from disposable hygiene products is compounded by this ecological burden. In a word: a real vicious circle. And when you think of the 45 billion sanitary pads that are thrown away worldwide every year (about 1447 items per second), it paints a rather discouraging picture.
What are the alternatives to disposable hygiene products?
Despite the market success of disposable protection, there are also alternatives. You don't necessarily have to use products made of plastic and dubious ingredients. Washable pads, for example, were very popular in the environmentally conscious communities of the hippie era. The menstrual cup, another eco-friendly alternative, appeared in the 1930s. So while reusable solutions have existed for a long time, they have repeatedly been overshadowed by disposable solutions. The menstrual cup is not necessarily comfortable or safe in terms of hygiene. When handling such internally worn hygiene products, even if it is a rare infection, Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS) can occur. To avoid a Staphylococcus aureus infection, hands must be thoroughly washed before and after insertion.
The period underwear is still the best reusable solution to stop pollution from menstrual hygiene products. The underwear is very comfortable, securely absorbs menstrual blood, and is very cost-effective as it lasts for several years . Additionally, it is a zero-waste solution, especially since the underwear is locally made by Sisters Republic. They provide comprehensive protection for every woman: from young girls who have their first period, to young mothers who suffer from vaginal discharge after childbirth, to mature women approaching menopause or experiencing incontinence. You may be wondering, how to wash the period underwear - it's very simple: just place them in the washing machine like your regular underwear after rinsing them first with cold water!
Fortunately, a large majority of women (60%) show a growing interest in reusable menstrual protection, and 20% are already using such products. These figures from a survey in the United States show that even women living in a society heavily influenced by the taboo of menstruation are concerned about the ecological impact of their hygiene product consumption. We are on the right track!
See our article on 10 good reasons for the period panty
