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.

[ouryve]

YANBU

But I keep some of the pearl on hand because they're much easier to insert after a bath. The ordinary ones sort of disintegrate on me and... you really don't want to go there.

[BeyondLimitsOfTheLivingDead]

fastweb you nutter! Roffle!! [hgrin]
"we had to jump up and down on just grass and LUMP IT"

[LieInsAreRarerThanTigers]

I don't think plastic is 'ok', it is overused and especially in one-off disposable items. Yes I do think a trampoline could last 30 years (don't own one by the way, it's just it was mentioned upthread as a comparison) if properly looked after, covered in winter etc. Basically I think it is a daft comparison though.
Plastic is much more suited to things which are meant to last a long time, that is my point, and should not be used for one-off disposable items.

I am equally opposed to polystyrene trays in pizza packaging (and other similar wastage), but there are no doubt consumers who think it is marvellous and reduces flacid pizza syndrome.I hate buying stuff in non-recyclable plastic, Philadelphia cheese or own-brand alternative, for example - one of the few 'solid' things I put in landfill as my dc love the stuff.

I don't think women hold the answer to the world's problems but I despair at the attitude 'well I'm not doing my bit til xxxx does their bit' - easy cop-out and path to eco-doom.

[thefirstMrsDeVeerie]

You severly testing my Pelvic Floor fast
Go and have a lie down sweetie.

[excitedLJ]

how embarrassed should i be that i have sat on a toilet multiple times just staring at a tampon with an applicator and just never been able to figure it out?!? I have to take them out of the applicator and get stuck in! I obv avoid this by using lillets in general but we've all been caught short and desperate times and all that...

[slightlymad72]

I have spent the past few hours experimenting with my recycling and have worked out that I can actually reuse the plastic milk cartons, the neck appears to be wide enough for my purposes. I have thought instead of using sanitary products I could just hold a milk carton between my legs and let the waste work its way down. Fizzy Drinks bottles just haven't got a big enough opening.

Also because of the heaviness of my periods I am thinking I might need to use the six pinter so I can manage all day without having to change the bottle.

I will have to ask DH to rig me something up, a harness or something so it will hang correctly and I'm also thinking of somesort of gasket or O ring to insure that once the neck of the bottle is inserted I can move freely without it falling out.

Do you think I need a bit of padding where the thread on the milk bottle will sit? I am worried it could cause chaffing?

Trampolines up the fanjo don't work, they cause more cramping and the metal poles are way to cold and not very absorbent

[LieInsAreRarerThanTigers]

I love your new invention but I don't think you should try trampolining with it 'in' slightly...

[BookNerd]

YABU.

They are the only kind I can use - the cardboard ones are uncomfortable/painful (Always feel like a direct shot to the cervix if you go too fast) and I really am not sure how to use one without an applicator.

At the grand age of 33, I've never comfortably managed it. I'd like it if they could be recycled but at that time of the month, it's not the first thing I'm thinking about. I only use them for swimming though, I hate the blooming things.

[fastweb]

I don't think women hold the answer to the world's problems but I despair at the attitude 'well I'm not doing my bit til xxxx does their bit' - easy cop-out and path to eco-doom

If you like the alternatives to disposable sanpro, brill.

My fanjo is happy for your fanjo.

But if your fanjo starts to reframe a choice based primarily on personal comfort and convience as a case of moral superiority (and have a pop at my fanjo for not getting with the eco programme, regardless of its own personal level of comfort and convienence) then it is at risk of being accused of spending too much time in the company of a right arsehole.


It is not a case of simply wanting somebody else to go first, it is irritation that "small potatoes in the grand scheme of things" eco improvements, that can be deeply uncomfortable or inconvient for many women, get a dispropotionate amount of attention paid to them, with a side dish of women shaming (oh er you have an ISSUE with your VAGINA) imported from second wave, circa 1970s

If people stopped distracting themselves with peity over their "micro drop in the ocean" eco industy branded consumerism maybe we could stay focused long enough on providing the comstant collective pressure required to get the PTB to do something more far reaching in terms of saving our collective arses (cos then the planet is just fine- RIP Carlin)

Like working out what in the name of buggery we are going to use for fuel?


ps

reduces flacid pizza syndrome

It does not.

Cardboard reduces flaccid pizza syndrome.

Anything remotely plasticcy induces pizza wilt.

FACT!

[fastweb]

You severly testing my Pelvic Floor fast

I have a "nearly new" pelvic floor wieght lifting sort of thingie if you are interested.

I'm sure in the name of recycling and non vagina hating you'll be cool with me regifting it to you.



I found my fanjo was as interested in building up useable muscles as my post C tummy is interested in even attempting a crunch. (crunchie is another matter)

I have the worlds's most morally repugnant vagina.

Won't do any exercise, refuses to push a baby out of itself and is personally responsible for the hole in the ozone.

[microfight]

fastweb

[LieInsAreRarerThanTigers]

'Eco industry branded consumerism' is better than 'multinational fuck the planet consumerism' in my book (secondhand from a charity shop of course)

IME people 'greening' their own lifestyles are far more likely to be involved in lobbying big business, political campaigning etc, than those saying 'well why should I when xxxx is happening?'

FoE campaigns for example, will be full of people with carbon-neutral heating, re-usable sanitary protection, composting loos, zero waste policies etc. The two things are not mutually exclusive, far from it.

[stepawayfromtheecclescakes]

beyond the limits way way back you asked does reusing the plastic applicator with cheaper tampons work, (sorry been away doing RL) Yes it does, after washing put the cheap tampon in (lil lets etc work too)hold the tube up and blow down it to get the string to pop out of the other end and hey presto you have a tampon, in a tube all ready for placement! I do it all the time, took a while to perfect the string blowing and some of them are a little shorter but as long as its hanging in the lower bit of the tube it will be in the right place when inserted. give it a try.

[ChippingInToThePumpkinLantern]

OK - this seems to be a good place to ask this... you know when you use the cardboard applicator tampax they are quite long and soft (are they all like that??), are the ones with the plastic applicator tampon like this or are they like non applicator tampons?

I can't get on with the cardboard applicators and just use non applicator ones but sometimes it would be handy to have an applicator

[stepawayfromtheecclescakes]

chipping its a hard version of the cardboard tube hth can probably be recycled to use Aldi tampons, will get on down there and try this out!

[4madboys]

the plastic is hard and very thin and smooth, almost shiny ( on the pearl ones) i havent taken a tampon out of one to see what it is like, but i know what you mean re the cardboard ones the tampon inside it is kind of floppy> that is what you are talking about? i may go and have a look at a pearl one, tho i am loathe to take one apart and not be able to use it, they are expensive!

i am intrgued by the idea of re-using the applicator, i never liked lillet or found them very absorbent, but i may experiment and see.

[ChippingInToThePumpkinLantern]

step - no, sorry!! I knew what I meant I was asking about the tampon inside, is it long and floppy like the ones in the cardboard tube or as they are called compaq are they small like non applicator tampons?

4madboys - yes, the tampon inside.

Removing them is revolting - urghhhh

[stepawayfromtheecclescakes]

chipping oops yes sorry too, seems obvious now what you meant , its a bit smaller but not as compact as the lil lets type hth
4 mad boys, if it comes out stick it back in and use my 'blowing' method described above to get string back in place, no need to waste a perfectly good tampon

[4madboys]

i dont use the compak ones, i use the 'pearl' ones, hideously expensive but marvellous, i shall go and take one apart, and make sure my boys dont see me, they do it to get the 'mice' out! and i always tell them off!

shall report back!

[4madboys]

right back again, i have a tampax 'super' pearl and i can push it up partway out and is JUST like a lillet, roughly the same size and like a bullet tbh, not quite as hard as a lillet but basically the same, so NOT at all like the regular tampax in the cardboard tubes that are all floppy etc. looking at it it would be VERY easy to re-use the applicator with a regular lilet, def something i may try, purely from the money saving point of view!

[ChippingInToThePumpkinLantern]

Stepaway - thanks for that. Think I'll stick to the system I have now. Though I might look at the washables for those am I/aren't I days.

What I really want is to be back on the pill & taking it back to back, but apparently I'm too old & too fat and have a family history of heart problems & HBP. Grrrrrrrr grump groan moan whinge.

[4madboys]

oh the boys have just asked what i am doing, sat at the pc with a tampon half in and half out of the applicator, ds4 has exclaimed 'mousey i want the mousey' i am not sure it is an appropriate toy, esp at the dinner table whilst eating

[ChippingInToThePumpkinLantern]

LOL Oops

[nomoreheels]

When I was back home in Canada I found out I could recycle all my used sanitary products & DD's nappies (disposables) along with food waste. My sister even chucked her cats' poo in. I was pretty impressed, if slightly weirded out at first.

[SarahLundsredJumper]

Oh Fast" bats eyelashes" am only a silly woman who thinks if she uses washable sanpro the world will be saved and I will fart rainbows!

FGS I dont walk around banging a drum - if its that difficult to use regular sanitary products that - you will "suffer" I would suggest seeing a doctor - might help with the craniorectal impaction as well