Traditional sanitary pads, tampons and applicators produce large amounts of non-biodegradable waste that takes centuries to break down. Selecting sustainable products can help lower this environmental impact while supporting sustainable practices.
Eco-friendly women’s pads made from natural materials like banana fibre, organic cotton, bamboo and corn are 100% biodegradable & compostable, while remaining breathable, soft and comfortable to wear.
Bamboo
Bamboo biodegradable pads are environmentally-friendly, vegan, hypoallergenic, free from chemicals and dyes and PETA certified vegan and cruelty-free period pads made from edge-grown bamboo that does not replace food crops but instead absorbs greenhouse gasses, releases oxygen into the atmosphere, restores soil, biodegrades quickly and biodegrades safely over time. PETA certifies them vegan for PETA certification as PETA cruelty-free certification while they feature ultra thin wings to stay put and provide leak protection – perfect for light to heavy flows! These period pads come packaged as combo packs that combine super absorbency with light to heavy flows to accommodate light to heavy flows respectively.
India alone, 84% of women do not have access to sanitary products, many relying on cloth instead. Saathi offers eco-friendly alternatives like cloth napkins that take less than six years to break down and emit toxic fumes when burned compared with plastic napkins which take 600 years and emit harmful emissions into the atmosphere.
Water Hyacinth
Eichhornia crassipes, commonly known as water hyacinths, can quickly overcrowd lakes and ponds with its fast-growing presence, making aquatic life hard to thrive in their environment. Furthermore, its population can double within just two weeks!
Jani Pads’ team has found an innovative solution to turning an irritating nuisance into something useful: school absenteeism and environmental waste. Constructed using materials found in invasive plants, their low-cost biodegradable pads solve real issues.
The team harvests water hyacinth plants from local ponds and transports them back to their lab, where they begin turning them into pads. After extracting the leaves and stems for cleaning using sunlight and industrial ovens, they blend these materials with raw cotton to form prototype pads.
Students then conducted compression and friction tests on their pads to assess mechanical strength. Compression testing showed that adding more water hyacinth increased strength but reduced thermal composite.
BanaPads
Menstrual products made of plant-based materials tend to be both cheaper and more environmentally friendly than their plastic-based counterparts, making them readily available to low-income communities in rural and developing nations. Furthermore, organic options reduce production and manufacturing costs while eliminating potential health issues caused by unhygienic menstruation practices – such as uterine fibroids, endometriosis, cervical cancer or the inhalation of toxic chemicals such as dioxins and furans (Shin & Ahn 2007).
Ugandan entrepreneur Richard Bbale founded BanaPads in 2010 to make biodegradable sanitary towels from banana pseudostem wastes that otherwise would rot away and pollute local environments. Their doors-to-door distribution model helps reduce absenteeism among schoolgirls and provide employment opportunities to women living rural areas; additionally it reduces 30 million tons of trash going to landfills annually while eliminating 30 million tons of plastic-based pads with up to 500 year decomposition times – an environmental nightmare!
PadBack
PadBack’s sanitary pads are crafted from organic cotton and bamboo pulp for maximum comfort during heavy flows and to reduce environmental impacts associated with plastic pads, which may release microplastics into water sources and harm marine life.
Utilizing eco-friendly sanitary pads is an effective way to decrease waste and chemicals that enter the environment, and use fewer resources and energy than conventional pads, leading to a smaller carbon footprint.
Organic cotton is grown without pesticides or chemical fertilizers, meaning it doesn’t contain dioxins which have been known to be highly toxic and cause many health issues. Furthermore, its cultivation protects soil and water by using organic fertilizers which enable natural materials to break down quickly into the soil without leaching chemicals into ground or ocean environments.
