The colossal ecological impact of disposable sanitary towels

Greenpeace believes that disposable sanitary protection is one of the most polluting industries in the world. Here are the keys to understanding the impact of tampons and pads on the environment, both upstream and downstream of their production.

RAW MATERIAL PRODUCTION: from the outset, the impact is enormous.

Driven by media and regulatory pressure, manufacturers of disposable sanitary pads are starting to talk about the composition of their products. And this is a good thing!
We have already discussed the composition of pads in this article. And we now also know that there is cotton in tampons (even if everyone suspected it).

Cotton, even if it is a natural product, is a plant cultivated with a lot of fertilisers and pesticides to boost its productivity: 25% of the pesticides used in the world are used for cotton!

India is the world's largest producer, and this cheap conventional cotton is reportedly the reason for a surge in cancer and autism in the region.

Unfortunately, cotton has another weakness: it is particularly water-intensive. And this is true for both conventional and organic cotton.

It takes between 7000 and 29000 litres of water to produce 1kg of cotton, whether organic or conventional!

Other components of tampons include rayon (also called viscose or artificial silk). Marcia might dance a little less if she knew that rayon is wood pulp broken down in caustic soda (or sodium hydroxide) baths. So it's true, lye is used to make soap. But also to unclog your toilet...

When used in an industrial setting, the soda ash that may be discharged increases the pH of watercourses, posing a threat to aquatic life.

It also seeps into the soil and contaminates it permanently. Once this soda bath has been given, flakes are obtained which are mixed with carbon disulphide (we'll let you dig in...) and then form a paste, which will be mechanically transformed into threads which will be cooled in a sulphate andsulphuric acid (or vitriol) bath.

In short, all these chemical components, sometimes toxic, are certainly used in factories that pay attention to the environment. But the fact remains that these components inevitably end up somewhere after their use...

Continuing on with rayon, it is also water intensive as the viscose process requires between 400 and 11,000 litres of water for 1kg of viscose.

As for the towels, they are almost all 100% petroleum (except for some brands of organic cotton towels). And even if it says "cotton feel", the word "feel" is important...

So towels are plastic, oil. We don't need to draw a picture of the impact of the transformation of oil, it's not very good ecologically.

The super-absorbent gel (the little beads that swell up) is made of sodium polyacrylate (or SAP) crystals. It too is a petrochemical derivative, but we could not find any information on the impact of its production.

Finally, whether you buy tampons or pads, they are often individually wrapped in plastic, some tampons have a plastic applicator, etc.

After use, disposable pads generate a mountain of waste.

Each menstruating person in France uses about 290 disposable periodical protections per year. And yet there are more than 15.5 million of us (in France alone) who have our periods.

Every year in France, 4.5 billion menstrual protections are thrown away!

It's very difficult to imagine what that means, isn't it? So we took the average volume of a pad and its packaging, and the volume of a tampon and its packaging. And based on a 50% tampon, 50% pad split:

We throw away +1 million m3 of sanitary protection every year! 🇫🇷

It's always a bit difficult to imagine, isn't it? So let's talk concretely: a semi-trailer is 100m3. So 10,700 semi-trailers.

Still not saying much? 176km of semi-trailers in a queue 🚛🚛🚛🚛

If you know Paris, the Montparnasse Tower measures 32x50m on the ground and 210m high. So the Montparnasse Tower is 336,000m3

This means that every year in France, the equivalent of 3 Montparnasse Towers of sanitary protection is thrown away.

And the worst part is that sanitary pads take 500 years to biodegrade and the materials in them contaminate the soil and water during this time.

The pollution generated is visible, but also invisible. Of course, there are the plastics that are sooner or later found in the soil or in the oceans. There is a lot of talk about the plastic continent, about the fact that in 2050 there will be more plastic than fish on Earth.

But in 2016, a scientific team identified rayon fibres as the most important part of microplastics found in the marine environment. These microplastics poison animals and can end up in our food.

How to limit periodic waste?

Today, sustainable periodic solutions are much more accessible and practical than in the past.

Switching to La Cup is a credible and modern alternative that both conserves water resources and limits waste.

For those who prefer external protection, menstrual pants and washable pads are durable and now work well, although you will need water to wash them. 

To a lesser extent, organic disposable pads are also a way to take a step towards the environment (even if, as we have seen, organic cotton uses a lot of water, and it remains disposable - but biodegradable anyway, in most cases)

Every menstruating person who is aware of this now has the opportunity to find the right protection. Good news, isn't it?