The urgency:

Onlinekhabar published an interview with Radha Paudel on June 4, 2021, the founder of Global South Coalition for Dignified Menstruation, who has been an advocate for dignified menstruation, she said , “On average, a menstruating woman who uses a pad requires about three pads in one cycle. In her lifetime, she disposes of about one and a half quintals of pads in the environment.”

“A single pad requires at least 500 to 700 years to get disposed of,” she added, “This means, pads collected from households just land in waste boxes or landfill sites or just get mixed in the soil. This causes underground pollution, impacting its agricultural output, and even induces landslides. Many pads are also disposed of in water resources, causing water pollution and harming aquatic life and the ecosystem.”

Most of the sanitary pads have over 90 per cent plastics and each pad is an equivalent to four plastic bags. 

So what to do?

DownToEarth reports 'considering the affordability and environmental impact of sanitary pads, cloth is an effective option.' Cotton cloth pads, when used hygienically are a healthier option as compared to chemical and plastic laden sanitary pads, which often lead to skin allergies. On affordability, if we compare the cost of cloth pad to that of disposable pads, the cost of one cotton pads may be higher than a packet of disposable pads, but one needs to realise that the life cycle cost of cloth pad is way lower than disposables pads.

So ladies, it's high time we ponder over the seriousness of this issue and switch to green pads.