Challenges

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Awareness on menstruation as a normal biological phenomenon is abysmally poor in various sections of the society irrespective of social and economic status. Prevailing sociocultural norms, beliefs, and practices make it difficult for women and adolescent girls to talk freely about menstruation without fear or shame. It is such a taboo in the society that not only girls and women feel shy to speak on this but also school teachers and health workers also feel uncomfortable to discuss menstruation management practices. The adolescent girl's only form of such education is from her mother and grandmother, who themselves had practiced the unhygienic behaviors for years. Even today, 71% of adolescent girls in India are unaware of menstruation until they get it themselves. Parents rarely prepare their daughters for something they know is bound to happen. And this unpreparedness leads to so much avoidable fear and anxiety

Accessibility of hygienic menstrual absorbents at affordable cost is an important determinant of safe menstrual hygiene management practices. Unfortunately, even today it is a distant dream in the current Indian context. Menstruating women and girls in the country often face challenges in accessing menstrual hygiene products due to several factors such as a lack of agency among girls and young women, unavailability of hygiene products, poverty and social norms. 

About 62% women in the country are using cloth which is reused after washing, cleaning, and drying. Social taboo also leads to cleaning and drying reusable menstrual hygiene products under unsanitary conditions, which can increase a woman’s chances of contracting cervical cancer, Reproductive Tract Infections, Hepatitis B infection, various types of yeast infections and Urinary Tract Infection. Many even lack resources for safely managing menstruation at home and in school/ workplace such as private bathrooms with clean water. Compostable disposables (e.g., sanitary pads made out of locally grown materials such as bamboo, banana stem fiber, sugarcane waste, and reusable cloth pads) have limited availability and higher cost while noncompostable disposables (e.g., cellulose-based sanitary pads with plastic barriers) with the largest market share are a double-edged sword. Although hygienic, they remain unaffordable for women from low-income household. Low income and poverty certainly limit a family’s ability to manage menstrual hygiene. Cost of hygiene products, washing facilities, and waste management is an expensive affair to many in the country.

If we go by facts then between the average woman's first cycle and menopause you can expect some 450 periods. During those 450 periods, the average woman uses between 12000- 15000 pads, tampons and panty liners. One sanitary pad has the plastic equivalent to five plastic bags, so one woman is using menstrual hygiene products equivalent to 60,000 - 75,000 plastic bags. Also, one sanitary pad takes up to 500-800 years to decompose. And remember these statistics are excluding the plastic wrapper of the sanitary pads and the tampons and the plastic applicator of tampons. Taking these statistics into consideration and considering that there are 355 million menstruators in India, out of which two-thirds are using tampons and pads, women are disposing of almost 12 billion sanitary pads per year. If we bury them they will not degrade and will add to the plastic burden of the earth in the landfills and oceans and if we burn them they release toxic carcinogenic chemicals like furans and dioxins. Even the streets animals eat garbage wrapped in polythene bags, and used sanitary napkins leading to serious health hazards. In this race of achieving better and better, we have unknowingly done significant damage to the earth.

A disposable sanitary napkin takes 500 years to degrade. This means that every single sanitary napkin ever manufactured still exists today. Disposable products contain harmful chemicals such as bleach and dioxins that may lead to irritation and infections in the short term and lifestyle disorders and cervical cancer in the long term. India still lacks the infrastructure to ensure proper incineration of sanitary products hence these dioxins are released into the soil and air if they are burnt at temperatures less than 800-degree celsius.

In certain places electric incinerators are favoured but challenges still exist in terms of designing cost-effective incinerators without emission of toxic fumes from burning of plastics (e.g., furans and dioxins).