To state the glaringly obvious, women get their periods every month. Count the number of women in the world and think of how long periods usually last, and then think of how many sanitary napkins and tampons are being used for each day of menstruation. Now imagine all of them piled up in landfills all over the world. It doesn’t make a pretty picture, does it?
A planet-friendly option is to use sanitary towels, or cloth sanitary pads. Digression: A similar object locally known as pasador was used in the days of our great-grandmothers, and possibly our grandmothers as well. I never knew how it was made, except that women used to sew these themselves and launder them after each use. Today, however, there are plenty of cloth pads you can buy, although as I understand it, women remain apprehensive about these and fear that they will…leak. Move out of place. Or something.
I stumbled upon Wemoon Natural Menstrual Pads yesterday, and they have a wide range of products for all types of menstrual flow. I was intrigued enough to actually purchase a liner. I thought I should get three or so, but since I am simply experimenting, one should be enough to see how effective it is. I’ll be dishing out too much information when I finally receive the item and all, but hey, anything for the pursuit of knowledge, yes?
There’s another alternative to cloth towels, and I have no idea how they work. Menstrual cups such as The DivaCup and Mooncup are gaining popularity as yet another way to ride the crimson tide in a green manner. Apparently, you only ever need one, since you simply wash the cup when it’s full. If any of you have used these, I’d love to hear how effective they are.
The best part is all these items are reusable, and they make it a point to be made of eco-friendly materials in the first place. Which is much more then we can say about the more commonly used disposable napkins and tampons.