Sanpro - environmental and feminist issues

[Himalaya]

Have just been reading the Women's Environment Network's new(Ish) briefing on sanpro

www.wen.org.uk/general/seeing-red-sanitary-protection-and-the-environment/

What do you think about the environmental and feminist aspects?.. And the briefing itself?

I am a happy mooncup user (thanks mumsnet) and mooncup advocate to friends - not really from a moral point of view as I think the environmental impact of properly binned sanpro is probably marginal in the grand scheme of things, but more from cost, comfort and slight green benefits. It seems like one of those things that few people will try without encouragement in the face of the much more mainstream advertising for "woaaaaaoh BodyForm" and the like.

On the otherhand I think crafting your own washable sanpro, unless you have allergies or something seems like another case of wasting womens time.

While i support tge aim of giving women more balanced info than the Tampax lady,The briefing does seem a bit scaremongery to me: Parabens! Cancer! TSS! death!
150 kg of waste (..What % is that ?)

The attempt to rebrand sanpro as "Menstrual Lingerie" seems a bit Are You Being Served? But maybe that's just me.

Anyway wondered what you all thought?

"menstrual lingerie" - well, I struggle to take anyone seriously who thinks sanpro should be referred to as that. I buy "lingerie" when I want something frilly and impractical, and "underwear" for normal practical purposes, and I know which of those I'd class sanpro as

Waste per year - 200,000 tonnes is sanpro, out of 290,000,000 tonnes of waste overall (quicke google - defra figure) - I make that 0.07% of UK waste. Hardly my top priority, personally. I agree the flushing issue is one which people should be more aware of - I stopped flushing them after we had problems with the drains, as having Dynorod out and ending up with a pile of them on the lawn wasn't my idea of a good day.

Thanks for doing the maths AMIS

Oh, good lord, I've just read to the end of the factsheet and got to the bit about making your own reusable towels. Sorry, I'm not "negative" about the fact that I have periods, but they're a messy nuisance and my life is made a lot easier by disposable products for dealing with some of the messier aspects of life, this one included. I'm sure crocheting my own towels out of hemp would give me a wonderful earth-mother glow, but it really, really isn't going to happen any time soon. I won't say "never" as the end of civilisation may happen and we'll all be back to the Victorian "rags", but short of that, I will not be taking their advice to make my own.

I use cloth san pro. I don't make them myself though - there's plenty available online. I've always preferred pads and cloth ones are so much nicer than always/bodyform etc. I find them more comfortable, less sweaty (as they're not plastic-y) and it's not a lot of effort (I tend to stick them in the washer with towels or nappies).

I struggle to get het up about sanitary pads and stuff. But that is because since I converted to a mooncup, it just became such a non issue. I wish I knew about it sooner as it is cheaper, more comfortable and just so easy. When I was at school, some presumably employees of tampax came into our sex ed class and told us about periods and funnily enough, we never learned about mooncups. There's too much money to be made out of making a big deal of the ickyness of periods.

Once I listened to a programme about girls missing school due to inadequate sanpro in the third world. I thought that good quality washable ones would be really useful in that situation. I wonder also how much resources are spent in the making of disposable sanpro, and why WEN do not seem to have researched that aspect of the industry.