Can someone tell me WHY they are so grossed out by sanitary products in a BIN?

[KateTush]

I know this thread may invite the haves and the have nots of bathroom bins to argue endlessly about it, but what I really want to know is…

…(to the people who DON’T think it’s acceptable to put a tampon/sanitary towel into a bathroom bin): WHY ON EARTH NOT?!?

It’s a bloody bin (pun not intended). In a bathroom. For bathroom rubbish. Which for many women is primarily used sanitary products. I’ve often seen threads where people say it’s disgusting to have to “handle” or “root around for” a friend’s tampon…er…you don’t do either?! You tie a knot in the bin bag, without looking at the contents cos you’re not deeply weird, and chuck it in the outside bin.

Using kitchen bin is one thing, but expecting a guest to put bathroom waste in their handbag next to their phone/snacks/pen/chewing gum/whatever is just so unreasonable it boggles my mind. Even more so if you have a bathroom bin but think that this particular use of it is unreasonable.

I’m wondering who I’ve offended in my life by using their bathroom bin in this way - it would never occur to me that there was an unsaid rule about sanitary products not going in there when it seems to be the main purpose of the bin being there in the first place.

I’m sorry, but I’ve also got to ask all the handbag smugglers/hosts who expect guests to handbag smuggle - are you generally a bit uptight about hygiene and bodily functions or perhaps periods in general? And again, how is it more gross to BIN something that PUT IT IN YOUR HANDBAG.

A bin is a bin. It’s for rubbish. That includes used sanitary products (obviously unless a recycling bin). A handbag is for putting everyday and useful items of an inoffensive nature in.

You don't have to clean the bin with your tongue you know.

Anyone been on holiday to Greece? You have to put used toilet paper in the bin there

Yep. It’s the case in other countries I’ve been to as well. They empty the bin daily. It’s fine.

I always put mine in nappy bags, then the bin which had a lid, a bag liner & some Zoflora in the bottom of those scented bin powders so they would never stink & the bin was so small it needed emptying every other day when I had periods. When I was bleeding after having ds I put them in the nappy wrapper bin.

We have a posh toilet that washes & dries after you have been for a poo, we still have loo roll but it mainly gets used for blowing noses.

If you wrap the used sanitary item in a nappy sack you can then discreetly dispose of the napopy sack and contents in the kitchen waste bin or dustbin outside, as I do.
I've not had any complaints about my practice of doing this. Nappy sacks are cheap, praxctical and readily available so there's no reason NOT to use them.

Nappy sacks are cheap, praxctical and readily available so there's no reason NOT to use them

Except its just more plastic. Does a plastic pad with a plastic wrapper to roll it up in , going into another plastic bin bag, really need another layer of plastic.

Its not great for the.enviromnent is it

I use those biodegradable bags for the bathroom.bin.

So if someone is staying with me in my flat for a few days and has their period and she has a heavy flow, some people on here would expect my visitor to traipse down a few flights of stairs every couple of hours, to put her used san pro in one of the communal bins? The communal bins which can be seen by any passing neighbour and which are visible from the street? And she'd be expected to do that even in the middle of the night, when presumably she'd have to get dressed first, and borrow my keys so she can get back into the building without have to press my flat buzzer to get me to wake up and let her in? How one earth is that better and more discreet than just using the bathroom bin?

Seriously. There is nothing unhygienic about waste in a waste bin. The not-changing-of-said-bin-until-it-smells is the nasty habit, not the binning of waste.

Yup fully agree OP. I know which practice I find more disgusting and it's not throwing pads/tampons in a bathroom bin. Do people really let their bathroom garbage sit for days on end?! I can imagine which decade the shamers come from😂 Young women today are not embarrassed by periods anymore thank heavens.

I don't think there is any justification at all for this kind of casual ageism.

I'm 42. My daughter is 12. My mum is 74. Her mum (died long ago) would have been 110 if she were still alive.

None of us are or were ashamed or prudish or revolted by periods. There is no need to make these inaccurate and insulting generalisations.

I’m 49, I’ve always out sanitary stuff in the waste bin. School was crap as only 3 of the toilets in the main loos had sanitary bins in them and if you got caught out in the wrong one it wasn’t fun to walk to the random sanitary bin in the corner of the room where the hard girls stood smoking but apart from that it’s never been an issue.

I don’t think that poster was being ageist at all. It’s pretty obvious that attitudes towards periods in society have changed over time, even within the last 50 or so years.

You think it's normal for someone to go to an outside bin at 2am to throw away their sanitary products??

Also I live in a house and in my borough outside bin rubbish must all be in black bags or it's not taken. Even when is it's easy to throw outside, for some it's not even an option.

My mum got her first period aged 11 in 1959. She was so proud that she went to tell her older brother who was embarrassed. She and my grandma were not remotely ashamed about it.

Yes, that post was ageist, yes,it was a generalisation, and no, just saying that something "is obvious" isn't evidence of anything at all.

The obvious thing to do here is take the sanitary protection straight to the local tip several miles away to avoid soiling one’s wheelie bin.

Don't know what all the fuss is about OP!

Personally I ask any visiting female if they are menstruating before they set foot over the threshold. I then hang a big sign around their neck and provide them with a bright yellow bag for clinical waste along with a hazmat suit so that they can deal with their own bio-hazard prior to leaving the property.😂

@FilterWash that’s great for your mum but there absolutely historically was a stigma (and unfortunately there still is in many parts of the world) which has been lessening over time. It’s not so much a generalisation as describing an observed sociological trend.

Bathroom bins are so tiny there is no point putting recycling in them as it's too bulky.

Try providing some citations rather than just making massive sweeping generalisations with no evidence.

Here's a good article www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/blog/summer-showcase-2019-how-cultural-attitudes-menstruation-have-finally-started-shift/ but that's such a weird thing to be disputing. It's like me saying that stigma towards eg being gay or divorce has been lessening and you saying that's an ageist generalisation - it's just a generally accepted fact about how our society has changed over the last century.

Thank you Chaoslatte, you are right I was not being ageist. I am much older than that poster and I lived through shaming, so I am very familiar with it. I do not shame people and that's great that that poster (and family) does not either. However those attitudes do come from those times.

We have a no flush agreement of things like tampons or wipes along our row of Victorian houses with fragile Victorian drainage. ( Also very careful about fat from cooking ) When there were 3 of us in the family menstruating I had a general bathroom bin for things like cotton wool pads, empty loo rolls etc. and a small, lidded pedal bin for tampons and pads.

Asked my daughters to have a discreet word with their many , many visiting teenage friends to use the lidded bin and explain why and I put a small note on the top - it seemed a better option to offer that than have them flush or put it in their bag because of embarrassment about putting it in the family general bin. My daughters had talked to me about feeling unsure about where they should put things in other houses. Did the same with my friends .

There was also an open basket on the bathroom dresser with pads and tampons for anyone to use.

The people that are revolted by and end friendships over and have no words for disposing of rubbish in…a bin…don’t seem to have any rational reason for it. Other than the dog going for it which is valid IMO. It’s all just “ew gross what if I catch the period germs”. I don’t accept that it’s a biohazard, unless you empty the bin with your tongue, otherwise how have I avoided catching cooties all this time?

I bet there is a correlation with public loo seat sitters here. I think it would be along the lines of not all hoverers are against sanpro in their bathroom bin, but all those against sanpro in their bathroom bin are hoverers .

Yep, it is a bin. Used sanitary products are rubbish, and rubbish goes into the bin.
It seems to only be a thing on MN where people are offended by it. I recall a similar thread where someone was disgusted that anyone would carry a used pad through the house because of the "germs".