Sanitary products
Why use reusable sanitary wear?
Environmental issues
- In the UK we buy more than 3 billion disposable sanitary products every
year. On average a woman uses 12,000 tampons or sanitary towels in a lifetime.
- In 2001 £370 million was spent disposing of them.
- Disposable panty liners used between periods are increasing the size
of the market. This all adds up to a massive number of items every year
which end up incinerated, in landfill or re-appearing in seas and rivers
contaminating beaches and aquatic life.
- On average, more than 14 towels and 4 tampon applicators per kilometre
of beach were found during a Beachwatch survey weekend in 2001.
- Since 1989 WEN has campaigned for greater awareness of the environmental
and health issues around sanitary products and the options available. In
1999, around 2.5 million tampons, 1.4 million sanitary towels and 700,000
panty liners were flushed down the toilet every day. The Bag it and Bin
it campaign, which WEN helped to start in 1995 is steering people away from
flushing their sanitary waste.
Health issues
- Disposable sanitary products are not sterile.
- Tampons are made from either cotton or a mixture of cotton and rayon.
Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS) is a rare but sometimes fatal disease. TSS was
identified in 1980 when a number of deaths were linked to a specific brand
of super absorbent tampon subsequently withdrawn from sale. TSS has been
linked to tampons made of viscose rayon with or without cotton. 100% cotton
tampons do not produce the TSS toxin from the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus,
while tampons with rayon do.
- Use of cotton raises issues of fair trade, pesticide use and genetic
modification. Cotton production accounts for 10% of world pesticide use
and exposes growers and pickers, wildlife and the environment to poisoning.
In developing countries, up to 14% of occupational injuries and 10% of fatal
injuries in the agricultural sector are due to pesticides. Pesticide residues
may be found in non-organic cotton
- Non-organic tampons may contain GM cotton. Manufacturers told WEN that
they cannot separate GM and conventional cotton in the supply chain. Current
labelling means they don’t have to state whether their products contain
GM material. There is no data to rule out any health risks associated with
the inclusion of GM cotton in sanitary products
Source of information: The Women’s Environmental Network
www.wen.org.uk
