to think plastic applicators for Tampax are disgraceful and unjustifiable?

[appropriatelytrained]

I sent DH to buy me a pack of tampons recently from the local shop. He came back with Tampax Compak (the only choice).

I'm no green activist, but I was shocked to see non-biodegradable, non-recyclable plastic applicators used for this product.

It seems to me that applicators are generally pretty unnecessary but to make them out of plastic just for convenience and comfort (Tampax's response to my query) makes them an unjustifiable vanity product.

Churning out plastic applicators for no genuine purpose when the company know (despite what they may say) that these products will end up flushed down the toilet, is disgraceful.

Right, I'll get off my soap box. I don't post here usually but I just felt really angered by this when so many companies are trying very hard to change the necessary packaging of their products, this company is producing unnecessary packaging without thought of consequence.

"Why suffer when |I dont have to"

Exactly!
Which is why I havent changed back to tampons because I suffer LESS pain,cramps and backache using a mooncup .

Don't be daft! if I was in the loo near a sink when I needed to blow my nose I might be able to do without the tissue as I could wipe my hands. That isn't usually the case though is it? And I am not sure that wiping snot on objects in a public place would be seen as pretty antisocial.

How many mooncup users shoot snot striaght into the basin even in their home/workplace?

Good grief, do they not LOVE the planet?

Dripping from a gore covered hand when moving from public loo to public basin isn't usually considered the height of pro-social behavior either.

And that is exactly what I look like without an applicator AND umteen sheets of toilet paper acting as a hand protector on days one to three.

I think my vagina has gyser envy. Or something.

It's like it lurks up there just waiting for me to go to the loo.

Maybe she is sulking due to a fashion oriented crisis of confidence.

I think the problem with inserting tampons particularily after childbirth and repair is that they are dry,compressed fibres - add in a bit of scar tissue and it can be excruciating.
I had a third degree tear and subsequent surgery and things arent what they used to be at all (understatement!)down there !

Well you could wipe your hand free of gore with toilet paper before leaving the cubicle.

fastweb and her fanjo are making me laff

well i tried a mooncup and didnt get on with it at all, it just wasnt comfortable and with my heavy periods needing chaning frequently, esp at night, whereas super plus tampax do the job better and yes they need chaning as well but its much easier to do.

and as for tax, they ARE already taxed, unlike mens razors etc as has been mentioned on here i am guessing disposable razors are not very good for the environment either but there wouldnt be the same outcry about men using those, funny that

Me too MrsD

and i was lucky enough to have births that didnt require stitches, other than ds1. and there is no scar tissue that i can feel etc, its more that when i get my period the whole area feels tender and bruised, even if i was to use pads it stil feels that way. no idea why, its almost like the tenderness you have after childbirth and its not very nice, it was never an issue before no 4 and no 5. but as i prefer not to put myself throuhg undue pain and discomfort (childbirth excepted) i will continue to use tampax pearl and their super smooth plastic applicator, which i ALWAYS put in the bin!

fair enough EDUCATE people to put them in the bin, but to ban them, not ok.

I rarely use applicator tampons. I'd much rather have my nice clean finger up there than a piece of cardboard or plastic. Even as a teenager I felt more comfortable doing it that way. I'm not a geyser like fastweb though and a wipe with some tissue is sufficient until I get to the sink.

Sorry that last response was a bit po-faced. Am posting in between pretending to work.

I felt a bit like that for the first 6m after childbirth mad. In fact I couldn't use tampons at all - it felt as if the sides of my vagina would break! It was horrible. But it eased after a while.

well dd is 10mths and the last two periods have been better, but have only been using the tampax pearl for the last two months, if things continue to improve then i would try the cardboard ones again maybe, i hope they improve i dont like feeling like i have a bruised and battered fanjo!

gore with toilet paper before leaving the cubicle

Considering how much loo roll I go through already when on, that stratagy might defeat the planet saving point of the exercise somewhat.

I suppose I could always rinse my hands off by swilling them around in the loo.

But until non biodegradable paintballs are outlawed and all things "toys for the boys" are geenified....can't say I'm much inclined.

I full expect in the near future to be told off in the future for not licking my floors clean instead of wasting water by mopping them.

And anyway my heating is carbon nutral.

Yeah when all you lot spend your summer getting hot, sweaty and covered in fecking splinters lugging wood about and your winters getting up extra early so you can get covered in a fine layer of ash pre breakfast, then we'll talk about my applicator tampons.

And I don't drive.

Admittedly I don't cycle either.

But thats cos I fall off.

I want one of these

I reckon if I find a way to attach a brolly to it at the right height and a ruddy great spike to stab at mad Italian drivers (trying to run me off the road in their high speed, "think I am at Monza", insane desperation to get where they are going ten seconds earlier) I'm all set.

At a pinch I think I could squash MIL in the basket and whisk us both off to IKEA.

Lug wood about ! ----I have a man to do that !

---I have a man to do that !

Mine very conviently has sciatica.

But to be fair I would't let him lug 120 hundredkilos by himself.

And he just doesn't stack it properly.

I like it organised by wood type AND size.

For optimum burning.

Not that I am anal about it or anything.

My chimney man was forced into admiring my superior stacking skill this morning.

He seemed very impressed.

Or desperate to leave after the first half hour of admiring noises.

Hard to tell really.

The 2 males that reside in the Lund household were totally uninterested until the purchase of a small axe
Now I can get rid of them by asking for more kindling - usually guarantees an afternoon of peace as they fight over who does it (one of them is 48!)

Yes 4madboys, they are taxed, with VAT, not a green tax which goes directly towards cleaning up the sea, beaches, improving environmental education to stop the flushing, or sewage treatment systems. And I said that ALL one-use disposable items should be taxed in this way, not just tampon applicators. I would put this tax on disposable razors, not the interchangeable blades, so that people keep the same handle for their whole lives, like in the old days.

Great thread- but I must go now and decide what to knit for dinner

Recycled sock-lentils for us again!

We are having roast carbon.

I wish I could we were doing our bit for carbon reduction.

But it's actually becuase I could burn water without trying very hard.

I call it Italian Cajun fusion cusine.

DH and DS call it "bloody English food"

Please don't tell them the whole of the UK doesn't actually eat lumps of unidentifiable black crunchy stuff on a dialy basis.

You'll ruin everything.

Plastic is a useful material and I would say tampon applicators would be a very good product to be made from plastics. Outside the household, public toilets have sanitary bins, which contents are collected by PHS or similar, and incinerated. Modern incinerators have energy recovery as well as optimum emissions control and capture and I would say are a far better environmental option than plastics recycling. I can't see that any local authority would accept biowaste plastics for recycling anyway.

Use what you want.... it's never going to be a 'happy period', but there's no need to make it as grim as you can either.

If you want something 'sustainable' to complain about, lobby your supermarket to stop using polystyrene trays for pizza and the like. Cardboard was the previous packing used, with film covering for the foodstuff. The cardboard was at least recyclable.

Polystyrene isn't readily recyclable in the UK and that sop - "Recyclable where facilities exist" is just meaningless... they don't exist.

For those people who think that plastic tampon applicators are the devils work please read the link. We all contribute to the plastic problem in our oceans everyday.

My point is those so horrified by people throwing tampax down the loo or using plastic applicators should look at their own plastic lifestyle first. And the poster who thinks trampolines and milk cartons are okay but applicators are not is incorrect. There is a lot of plastic in kids garden furniture even if it can be recycled (although much of it ends in land fill) it is not any better than plastic applicators.

ezinearticles.com/?The-Environmental-Problem-with-Plastic&id=1065756

i am well aware that there isnt a 'green tax' on my tampax, i know its vat, why the fuck i should have to pay vat on them i dont know, esp when products such as mens razors are vat exempt!

and whoever said about a trampoline lasting for three generations, so you are saying a trampoline could last say 30yrs, i dont think so!

And the poster who thinks trampolines and milk cartons are okay

Trampolines ?

Tampo-fucking-lines get let off the hook but tampon applicators are the eco spwan of the devil?

Women really are deemed the front line of convience amd comfort martydomm to the green cause if that is a widespread stance.

Mark my word, we'll be castigated if we don't lick our floors clean in the interests of saving water before you know.

In my day we had to jump up and down on just grass and LUMP IT.

None of this world destroying, carbon breeding, ozone hole cranking open, eco horror trampoline LUXURY!!