Photo credit:
Mansee, SXC
Men, please click away; this doesn't concern you. Okay. Are we alone here? Good. Because we need to talk about some serious greening. Uh, monthly greening. If you get my drift. Oh, stop. I'm not going to suggest that we spill our menstrual blood under a tree to return it to the good Mother Gaia (but if that's your thing, go to it!), but there's some serious wrong stuff happening down there, stuff that needs correcting and fast, for a lot of reasons.
Are you ready for some stats? How about this: according to Alternet, there are 85 million women of menstruating age in North America; the average woman disposes of between 10,000 and 15,000 tampons, pads and applicators in her lifetime. OMG. Twelve billion tampons and pads are thrown away every year in the U.S. and Canada, decorating our landfills and waste treatment plants.
And what are they made of? Disposable pads contain polyethylene plastic. Um, yum? And it's said that plastic tampon applicators make up 2.2% of the total Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Yikes. There's more pink Playtex plastic floating out there than bird-killing six-pack rings. Sure, you can get tampons made of organic cotton rather than the bleached variety, but what do you do with them after? Unless you're composting yours—and no, I'm not composting mine either—then you're contributing to the waste problem.
What then? How about one of the Three R's—Reuse?
You can get washable pads in every size and shape known to woman, made from every eco-fiber imaginable. That's one choice. Works great. Not into the pad thing? Yeah, me neither. Then there's the menstrual cup, and Alternet's description has me almost ready to try it. Or a sea sponge. They sound easy. And not messy. And wayyy better for me than the stuff I've been using.
I'm serious about this. The Diva Cup. Sea Pearls. The Keeper. I will if you will. Deal?
How to join the Canvolution
Comments (3)Add a Comment
Inappropriate or promotional comments may be removed.
There's a thriving online community of menstrual cup users over here.
Another resource! Thanks, Nicole!
I've been using the Diva Cup for 4-5 years now and love it. I have cloth pads for overflow but prefer disposable pads for nighttime and the first couple days of my cycle when the flow's heavy. So I end up using about 1 disposable pad a day during the cycle. The cup can be a bit messy to change, especially in a public restroom, but you do get used to it and it's not a big deal. I find cloth pads less convenient to change in public, since you'd have to put the used one in a bag and take it home.