Pad positive: Towards a sustainable alternative

CHENNAI: Sanitary napkins on social media have been trending for the past month. The release of the film ‘Pad Man’, inspired by A Muruganantham, the man behind the low-cost sanitary napkin revolution, had celebrities taking up the challenge to normalise period talk.

But despite discussions in the past couple of years about menstrual hygiene, sustainability remains a topic for environmental activists with only a dozen firms working on creating a 100% degradable napkin. From corn starch to pine wood, plant-based ingredients are forming the core of recyclable,

eco-friendly

sanitary napkins. Saukhyam’s reusable pads and Saathi’s disposable ones, both made of banana fibre, are a step in that direction.

Amrita SeRVe (Self Reliant Village), the initiative behind Saukhyam pads, turns waste banana stems, discarded by farmers, into fibre, and sews it along with a cloth cover and base. “Banana fibre is the main absorbing material in the napkin. It is good in three ways – health, environment and cost,” says Anju Bist of Amrita SeRVe, a project undertaken by Kerala-based

NGO

Mata Amritanandamayi Math.

Easy to wash and use, the pads which are now available online as well as in stores in Bengaluru, Kerala and Chennai, are priced around Rs 700 for starter packs that last for at least three years. “Compare that to the average woman’s spending of up to Rs 2,000 annually on non-biodegradable disposable pads,” points out Bist, who creates awareness on sustainable menstrual hygiene in schools and colleges. Reusable pads are needed, if for nothing else, than to combat the waste management problem in cities. “Since today’s youth are more environmentally aware, it is necessary that we start talking to them early on all the facets of menstruation,” says Bist.

The mindset is the biggest challenge that entrepreneurs working towards sustainability face. People are still reluctant to use reusable pads, and doubt its hygiene. That’s where Ahmedabad-based NGO Saathi comes in with their bio-degradable disposable napkins made of banana fibre. “We primarily work in the rural sector, where use of pads is still low and so disposable ones are better as girls may not be aware of the hygienic practices that need to be followed with a reusable pad,” says Kristin Kagestsu, co-founder of Saathi. Available online at a price of Rs 178 for eight pads, the NGO distributes the napkins at a subsidised rate in schools.

“Among the urban educated women, the switch to biodegradable healthy alternatives will happen only when there are enough options and awareness about it,” says gynecologist Dr

Jagadesh Narayanareddy

.

With no bleaching involved in making the napkins,

Kagetsu

’s product won her finalist award at the 2018 Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards in the

Asia-Pacific

region.

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