Each month when our period arrives, we reach into our cupboard and grab that disposable pad or tampon wrapped in its light green packaging that is designed to make you feel like it is clean and safe to use. Little do we know, those products are filled with toxic ingredients that are harmful to our long term health. They can actually cause heavier periods, worse cramping and even in extreme cases lead to infertility or cancer.
Not only are they harmful to us, they are terrible for our environment as well. Once we have used the pad, it is sent to a landfill where it sits for 500-800 years before it decomposes. Considering each person will use an average of around 10000 disposable period products in their lifetime, that is a lot of waste just collecting on our planet.
If all that isn't reason enough to try something different, these disposable products also hurt our pocketbook. The average menstruator spends between $80-120 per year on disposable products. This really adds up over the average of 40 years a person will menstruate.
One alternative to these disposable products is reusable cloth pads. They are used very similarly to disposables except they are washed and reused over and over rather than thrown in the trash after one use. They are easy to use, simple to wash and far more comfortable than the plastic feeling disposable products.
Modern cloth pads are far improved from the folded up rags our ancestors used in the past. New innovative fabrics have been created that allow the pads to function just as well (if not better) than any disposable product out there. Makers have been able to design products with these new fabrics that are highly absorbent, waterproof yet breathable, incredibly soft and comfortable, all while also being visually pleasing. They are very customizable and there is a cloth pad option out there to suit every need.
If you are interested and would like to know more, follow along for future blog posts where I will go into a lot more detail discussing topics such as: Fabrics in cloth pads, Pros and Cons, How to wash, How to use, and much more.
0 comments