Nowadays, there are so many dialogues on menstrual as a taboo and sanitary pad. NGO and Volunteers are going to rural villages and slums to distribute sanitary pad as an act of doing something nobel. When one say about menstrual hygiene, all that others hear is sanitary pad! We hear how women all over India still don’t use sanitary pad and how still it is uncomfortable to talk about it. Menstruation is not something new that we know. It is a natural process and since the evolution of animals, it has always been there. Rather, evolution is actually not possible without women bleeding. Women have also evolved with it from period to period. And then suddenly sanitary pad was invented. Sounds great! Now women can do many works without the fear of stain! It is certainly a sign of a new era for women. But wait… Somebody forgot to mention about its disposal system.
Nobody did teach us how to dispose it. Nobody told us what happens to those pads after it goes away from our home. All we hear about menstruation is to break the stereotype like to not to wrap our sanitary pad while buying it. Sanitary pad is sold to people in the name of movies like Padman. Movies that don’t suggest to break the menstrual taboo but ask us to use sanitary pad.
Do you know many rag pickers are vulnerable to hepatize B and C, Salmonella, Staphylococcus because of the unwrapped open sanitary pad that women throw? Yes, unwrapped and exposed pad! Many women do not wrap their pad before throwing because either they feel embarrassed because of the paper sound or they feel dirty to do so. But what they forget is when they do not do something because they feel it as dirty, how could others do the same? And this is the case in both rural and urban area. Women dress up and go to fancy shopping complexes but don’t have the courtesy to wrap their sanitary pad and throw it in dustbins. Public toilet in malls, theater, transportation nodes are the best places to see such unhygienic action of women. Finding used unwrapped sanitary pad in girl’s hostel is a kind of normal thing in India. Some women learned to be “modern” but forgot to be civilized.
“Will your mother even touch those used unwrapped sanitary pad, that you girls leave in the bathroom to be cleaned by maid”, said the maid of one of the girl’s hostel.
It takes 600- 800 years for the disposal of one sanitary pad. Has pad company ever done anything about it? All they say how using cloths are bad for health and using pad is good. There have been different studies that have shown even if the pad is not changed at a regular interval, it can do more harm than good to health. In India, almost 9000 Tonnes of sanitary waste is dumped into landfill every year. The number is going to add up in the coming days with more women using it. There is no escape from it. Now some NGO has started cloth pad campaign for a safe environment. Cloths were never a problem, the shame of period was. During the period women wash and dry their washed clothes in the shaded area or in a room, where no one could see it. And that is where the problem lies. Because for a clean and hygiene cloth to be reused, it needs sunlight. Else cloths were never an issue. But thanks to all pad company for making our ancestors look like an uneducated fool.
Some women do wrap their pad before deposing it, but it opens up eventually before reaching landfill site. That is because wastes are transferred from one zone to another in an urban area until it reaches the landfill site. While loading unloading solid waste, sanitary pad gets open up when it is not wrapped properly. Then while rag picker searches the landfill site for the recyclable product in bare hand and foot, all they have to go through is unwrapped pad.
Dear women, it’s my sincere request to you to rethink before disposing of your sanitary pad. Here is a small tutorial to how to wrap it before throwing it away. You can always follow your own method but just remember to wrap it tightly so that it does not come out on some one’s hand.
infographic credits: open.edu
Please put all the pads in a ploythene and then put it in the dustbin.
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P.s: Do try menstrual cups. Those are really comfortable and environmentally friendly.
