Eco-friendly Sanitary Napkins in India

Author – Rayomand Gheesta

I woke up the other day to the sound of the garbage man arguing with one of the residents of the township I stay in. He was protesting about the way sanitary napkins and used diapers were disposed of. Since they are medically pathogenic, he wanted people to properly dispose of them after use. On giving it some thought, I figured he had a point.

There isn’t a standardized way of disposing of a sanitary napkin. It is just rolled in paper, put in a plastic bag and just thrown off in garbage. Waste workers while separating these non-biodegradable napkins, can be infected with infections and allergies. There badly needs a humane way for them to handle this kind of waste.

Now, we are observing that aged adults are also using bed pads due to incontinence. Such used sanitary napkins and disposable diapers are one category of waste nobody wants to talk about. However, the enormous volumes of napkins produced and the threat they pose to the environment are real. On top of that, social taboo of an unspoken topic will always be a roadblock for bringing changes. It may need a lot of counseling, spreading of information and more than anything an open mind to shift to these options. But every sanitary napkin or disposable diaper you can save from a landfill will have a cascading effect and positively impact forests, water, air, the city you live in and your health.

Picture this: A parent choosing disposable diapers for an infant, typically till the baby is two years old, would run through nearly 1,500-2,000 disposable diapers (365 days x 2-3 diapers x 2 years), which would require 20 trees to be cut down and 1,180 liters of crude oil to be utilized for their manufacture. The statistics around feminine hygiene products are no less alarming. Only 12% of the 355 million women of menstruating age in India can afford disposable sanitary napkins. However, these 42.6 million Indian women will throw away 21.3 billion sanitary napkins into a landfill in their lives.

Apart from wood pulp used in both disposable diapers and sanitary napkins, chlorine bleach is a key ingredient that is used to whiten the pulp. Chlorine bleach is a huge environmental hazard that releases toxic chemicals as a by-product of the bleaching process. Diapers and sanitary napkins finally end up in a landfill since there is no option to dispose of them in a safe manner.

Eco-friendly sanitary napkin options in India

Fortunately, as with any problem, there are a few innovative solutions for avoiding non-biodegradable sanitary napkins and disposable diapers. Here are a few options available for concerned women who want to explore healthier and eco-friendly sanitary napkins:

Reusable Modern Cloth Diapers

As a substitute for normal diapers, Reusable modern cloth diapers can be used. These cloth diapers have a water-tight outer cover with a washable cloth insert inside. Once full, the wastes are flushed down the toilet and the insert can be washed and re-used. Further, the baby does not come in contact with harmful chemicals found in a normal disposable diaper and cloth diapers turn out far more economical over 2 years as compared to your regular environment polluting diapers. Click here to read more about eco-friendly diapers in India.

SheCup

The first is the ‘SheCup’ made from silicone and designed like a cup to collect the menstrual blood that is worn internally. This can be worn for 12 hours. Once full, the contents of the cup can simply be emptied into the toilet, and the cup can be cleaned and worn again.

Reusable & Eco-friendly Sanitary Pads

The second option is a reusable sanitary napkin made from cloth. The design and use of these cloth napkins are similar to disposable napkins, and they provide absorbency by using many layers of cotton. They have options for heavy and light-flow days and a combination of the two can fully substitute disposable napkins. They are quite easy to care for as well, and can even be washed in a washing machine after soaking and removing all the menstrual discharge. Here again, the reusable cloth napkins protect the user from coming in contact with a number of harmful chemicals found in disposable napkins.

Napkin Disposal

Due to increasing consumption due to aggressive marketing, we have a situation where we are running out of space for waste disposal. To counter this, SWaCH NGO has come up with a disposable paper bag that costs just one rupee to pack the used sanitary napkin before chucking it into the dustbin. These bags have a bright yellow sticker with the details of usage, which makes it recognizable by waste pickers to separate it. However, this solution just caters to the tip of the problem.

Bio-degradable Sanitary Pad Innovations in India

A third option is to use Biodegradable sanitary napkins that are disposable being produced by a few companies. Here is an exhaustive list of companies that produce eco-friendly sanitary napkins in India.

• Arunachalam Muruganantham of Jayaashree Industries designed and implemented a sanitary napkin-making machine that operates on a small scale. This manual sanitary napkin-making machine can be made available to a buyer for approximately INR75,000. This national innovation foundation award-winning idea allows smaller players to adopt the business model, and thus generates more employment.
• Aakar Foundation produces a low-cost, biodegradable eco-friendly sanitary napkin, ‘Anandi’. Priced at a price 40% lower than commercial napkins, the foundation focuses on small towns and villages and now has a commercial production unit in West Bengal.
• Sakura Magic produced by the Hope Foundation is India’s first 100% handmade, hypo-allergenic and eco-friendly sanitary napkin. It is a sanitary napkin with imported SAP Gel from Japan made possible with technological assistance from GN Corporation., Japan.
• Reusable diapers are slowly gaining popularity. ‘Bumchum’ was India’s first modern diaper line, but now various brands like Firstcry, Smartbaby, Babyoye offer the same.