Period proof underwear

Because they are filling up landfill, blocking toilets and polluting our oceans. Women will use between 11,000 – 17,000 disposable sanitary pads and tampons in their lifetime. Every year, the resulting global impact is massive.

• In the US, approx. 12 billion menstrual pads and 7 billion tampons go to landfill.¹
• An estimated 1.5 billion sanitary items are flushed down the toilet in the UK, ending up in the ocean.²
• Every year India produces 9,000 tonnes of sanitary waste (432 million pads).³
• In Australia, 18,000 tonnes of sanitary waste go to landfill (that’s 800 million pads/tampons).⁴

Because they take forever to decompose – well, almost forever.

Pads take more than 500 years to decompose. That enormous amount of waste that is generated every year will be around for a lot longer than you and I. Every single disposable pad you’ve used will outlive your great-grandchildren and beyond. Tampons will decompose in approximately six months, however the plastic applicators will take 25 years.

Plastic, plastic, and more plastic

From the information that is publicly available, we know that pads are largely made of plastic – one menstrual pad is the equivalent of FOUR plastic bags. Based on the average number of pads women will use in their lifetime, that adds up to 67,200 plastic bags. For comparison, Let’s say you went grocery shopping every week from the age of 18 years to 70 years, and used 6 plastic bags each time. That adds up to 16,224 bags – just under a quarter of the equivalent plastic in our pads. As well as plastic, pads are likely to include bleached rayon, cotton (which would have been sprayed with pesticides), and sometimes fragrances (more chemicals).