to ask...where do you put your used tampons at home?

[YellowCat3]

Okay, I'll fess up...for years I've flushed them [blush. I've never thought too much about the enivronmental impact as I thought it was the same as loo roll, but have recently become aware that I definitely need to stop.

But I don't like the thought of them lingering around the house. We don't have a bin in the bathroom as it seems disgusting somehow, and our only bin is in the kitchen. It seems beyond skanky to put soiled tampons in there. I just wondered what other women do - do you put them straight in the bins outside, or are you happy to have bloody tampons in the bins inside for days? Not sure if I am being OCD about this (probably), but feel puzzled as to the best way to dispose of them?

I didn't think a thread on MN could make me feel so angry and want to stab people at 8.30 on a Monday morning but this one has managed to

All you fucking fuckers flushing your tampons down the loo and refusing to stop should be forced in to the sewers and made to clear all the blockages and fatbergs with your bare hands, ALL OF YOU

Until we all grow up a little bit and stop being ashamed of periods, woman are still going to be made to feel dirty because they bleed once a month ish

I wouldn't have put it quite so bluntly but I agree with the sentiment.

Please don't wrap individually in plastic to be wrapped again in a kitchen/bin liner. It's only your own blood

pads come in plastic wrappers anyway so I use the wrapper from the next pad to wrap the old one. I use tampons very rarely, only if I am on a heavy day when I want to go swimming. When I use them I wrap them in a piece of loo roll and put in bin.

@ethelfleda chances are you won't need to change it at work unless you have a heavy period. I change mine before I go and when I get home. Otherwise you can empty and wipe in the cubicle it will do without a rinse until next change

I think a small bathroom bin (where you can put them wrapped in toilet paper or a cardboard loo roll core) is much better than flushing it down the toilet. Don't toilets get blocked because of that? How did you, OP, manage not to block yours? Or you do? I'm just wondering.

I haven't read it all but guess some people have been nasty - for no reason, as always. I'm sorry if this is the case. But there's nothing "disgusting" about period blood and it's possible, and very easy, to dispose of it in a clean way. If you take it straight outside, you are not cleaner or better than someone who keeps it in the bathroom bin, this is just what suits you; if you flush it down the loo, it's better that you don't, but I wouldn't say you deserve death right here right now either.

It’s quite baffling that women who can get so high & mighty about not flushing them, are then happy to put them in plastic bags, sometimes several.

Jaques (& others) I understand what you mean about already having the plastic bags (the ones that have been gained from other items), but by putting them in those bags any ability they do have to biodegrade is then lost for many, many more years, if ever.

Unless you have to carry them around in your bag, wrapping them in any kind of plastic isn’t helping the planet.

The not flushing tampons is more to do with not wanting to block the pipes and cause huge sewer blockages than saving the planet by not using single use plastic possibly.

But wrapping in loo roll does the job for me.

Wrapped in loo roll in the bathroom bin. If you're worried about them smelling you could always wrap them in loo roll them put that inside a scented nappy sack.

Funny how the 'save the planet' brigade are quiet about the scourge disposable nappies are on the planet

This is unfair. I use a moon cup because it means no tampons being wrapped or flushed, and with both DC used reusable nappies and wipes. If there's an environmentally-friendly way to do something, I'll try to do it.

Yeah SB I do get that, but there are still quite a few posts about the environmental impact of them ending up on beaches etc. I know it’s not all the same thing, but to cause a greater environmental impact to stop drains getting blocked just seems so hypercrital to me 🤷🏻‍♀️

Gah. I still didn’t explain that very well. I NEED ☕️

I get that not wanting to block the drains & cause hassle & expense has nothing to do with the ‘environmental impact’. Two separate issues.

However, given the huge drive about single use plastics and landfill etc it just seems ridiculous to ME to suggest solving one problem (blocked drains) by adding to another one (plastic in landfill) when there are perfectly do able alternatives.

I’d also like to best most people who are up in arms about flushing are also up in arms about plastics & landfill.

Wrap in toilet paper, bathroom bin which is small and therefore gets emptied very regularly. Please don't flush people!

Bathroom bin, change it at the end of the period. It's probably even worse for the environment to chuck out a plastic bag for every tampon!

I use modibodi undies, but on the rare occasion I need a tampon (swimming), I wrap in loo paper and into the kitchen bin.

*but by putting them in those bags any ability they do have to biodegrade is then lost for many, many more years, if ever.

Unless you have to carry them around in your bag, wrapping them in any kind of plastic isn’t helping the planet*

Our rubbish goes to incinerate not landfill so the fact that it won’t biodegrade is fairly moot - and hence why I like to at least make use of unsolicited plastic!

DD and I have lidded bins in our bathrooms,emptied at end of period/when full whichever comes soonest and nearest to bin day,into kitchen bag to bin.
The bag it and bin it is due to fat burgs and blocked pipes,you may not like your own tampons in your bin but you might like it even less removing lots of other people's from the sewers along with all the fat and cover grounds that people shove dawn there too.

But even if I don't put them separately in a bag they are going in a bin lined with a bag as I am not putting rubbish in an unlined bin or straight in my outside bin. As I said in a previous post I had maggots in my outside bin once and I will do everything I can not to have them again!

Get a bathroom bin with a lid. It's not skanky at all. I hate it when I'm on my period and i go to someone's house and there's no bathroom bin. What am I supposed to do? You can't flush tampons, I'm really shocked that you've been doing that.

Also what do you do with your dental floss? Or the hair from your brush? Or used tissues? Not having a bin in the bathroom sounds like a right PITA to me.

It’s not hard not to have a bin in the bathroom. Tissues down the toilet, dot use dental floss. Hair crush gets de haired usually at the bin. Toilet roll holders go straight to recycling bin.

I’m surprised people are so shocked by idea of no bin

I've used a mooncup for the last 12 years or so but before that I put them in the bathroom bin which gets emptied every day.

Erm, they're supposed to suction over your cervix!

They really aren't,they aren't like diaphragms,they're worn much lower.

I have no idea how you don't have a bathroom bin. Makeup remover pads, tissues, dental sticks, old toothpaste plus sanitary products - none of these can go down the toilet!

If I visit people's houses without bathroom bins, I put the sanpro into their kitchen bin. What do they want me to do, take a soggy tampon home with me in my handbag?

I put things straight into the main bin. Why is that so hard for people to get their head around?

I use special period knickers - like a pull up washable nappy.

I didn't think a thread on MN could make me feel so angry and want to stab people at 8.30 on a Monday morning but this one has managed to.

That's exactly how I felt

I think I could get used to cleaning a mooncup but what about at work??

I’ve never needed to empty mine at work. It holds more blood than a tampon. If your periods were unusually heavy then you might of course but mine are fine.

Until I started reading MN, I had no idea that ppl thought bathroom bins were gross or that it was OK to flush tampons. Neither my DM nor DSM did and they were both born in the 1950s so I don't think it's just a generational thing. I personally think it's easily to just have a small bin in the bathroom than cart stuff through the house but that's personal choice I guess. I don't think it smells, if anything the kitchen bin smells worse.