Posted on 08/11/2025 11:58:17 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
It was six months ago that Selin Celikoyar bought her last tampon and switched to a reusable menstrual disc.
“I had already been wary of tampons from an environmental perspective and also from a biological perspective. I felt that they were very wasteful and expensive to consistently keep buying,” she said.
The flexible discs and other reusable menstrual products are gaining traction as alternatives to the billions of single-use pads and tampons that get tossed into landfills every year. Products such as the discs, silicone cups and period underwear can be reused for years, so they’re cost-effective and long-lasting in addition to helping people reduce waste. The popularity of the reusable alternatives has grown since the pandemic, when it was easier to experiment with period products in the privacy of a home bathroom, according to women’s health experts.
Celikoyar said she used tampons and pads for years because those are the options she grew up knowing about. But when she saw her friend make the switch to a menstrual disc, she decided to try it too.
“The experience has been such a game changer,” she said.
About 12 billion disposable pads and 7 billion tampons go into U.S. landfills every year, according to Dr. Luwam Semere, chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara. Pads are mostly plastic. Once they’re in the landfill, they take up to 800 years to degrade, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Single-use pads and tampons are by far the most popular period products. Women’s health expert Dr. Navya Mysore said that’s not because they’re better, they’re just usually the first options kids are shown.
“It was often...”
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Takes a lot less than 800 years in Fairfax County, VA ... where burning garbage generates steam to turn turbines and generate electricity. Maybe other places could jump on the co-generation bandwagon.
Sheep
That sounds painful.
“Before you know it we’ll be back to cloth diapers for babies.”
I’ve heard that it’s happening already.
Safe and sustainable waste management of self care products
...Sanitary pads consist of up to 90% plastic and take around 500-800 years to biodegrade.9 One sanitary pad may contain as much plastic as four supermarket bags.10...
The plastic is the problem.
As the oldest of five siblings, the youngest being 16 years younger than I, it seems that there was almost always a diaper pail lingering in the bathroom.
Are these being preferred by females in set ways, with set patterns and constant access to facilities?
Were the more disposable products more useful for girls who were always being dragged to activates and dancing, picnicking, camping, outdoor concerts, motorcycling, touch football, swimming holes, and all the other places active boys used to drag girls constantly?
In my state, paying for expensive, disposable diapers for the very many welfare moms is a thing—and for the life of me I can’t understand why they’re not just given a stack of cloth diapers instead.
Cloth diapers are an alternative if you’re willing to promptly change a soiled diaper.
But use of super absorbant diapers reduces the risk of diaper dermatitis for babies who don’t get a prompt change.
That’s why there will never be a mandate for natural diapers.
See my reply #29.
Babies who have caregivers who can’t or won’t promptly change a soiled diaper are better off in the newfangled ones.
if only you hadn’t mentioned smell.
Nope no thanks! give me a throw away any day
There’s no reason for babies to be neglected!
No women are switching to reusable menstrual products. This is effort by reusable and climate activists to push there agenda on women.
In a perfect world, there isn’t.
But babies don’t live in a perfect world.
They live in realville.
And in realville a baby who has to wait for a change, for whatever reason, is far better off in one of those superabsorbant diapers.
I guess you didn’t want to bother with cloth?
I’m old enough to remember when ladies needed a belt.
And what we attached to it was neither thin, nor comfortable.
I just read a paper out of India on the use of banana skins to produce a product that is thin, absorbant, and is quicker to biodegrade in a landfill.
I’m sure there is a better way than cotton for this usage, but until then, I’m glad there’s a better choice available than the ones ladies my age and older grew up with.
That was incredibly unkind remark to make to someone you don’t know from Adam’s housecat.
It doesn’t reflect well upon you.
Your snotty responses to my posts don’t reflect well on you.
(I’ll take it you’ve also fallen for P&G/Pampers-funded propaganda.)
“ Once they’re in the landfill, they take up to 800 years to degrade,“
Utter bullshit.
True, but that doesn’t stop it from occurring.
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