Mitigate While You Menstruate: Plastics
The second way that the cup mitigates Climate Change: it uses less plastic!
On average, a woman uses 11,000 tampons in her lifetime (1).
On average, a woman discards 125-150kgs of pads, tampons and applicators in her lifetime (2).
The majority of this waste ends up in landfills, rivers and seas.
In 2010, a UK beach clean found an average of 23 sanitary pads and 9 tampon applicators were found per kilometre of coastline (2). The plastics don’t go away!
The main environmental impact of sanitary products are caused by the processing of raw materials, in particular low-density polyethylene (a plastic).
The problem with pads: they are on average 90% plastic (1).
The problem with tampons: the applicators don’t go away. 2009 Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup project collected 20,000 tampon applicators out of 4 million total million pieces of reclaimed plastic waste (3).
The problem with plastic: its production heavily contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. The EPA averages that five ounces of carbon dioxide are emitted per ounce of polyethene produced (4). That’s a 5:1 ratio of CO2:plastics!
Pledging to use reusable menstrual products save all this production and pollution of plastics and will significantly reduce emissions, helping to mitigate climate change.
Our actions are important! Pledge today at https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/be-green-period and save the world #onecupatatime!
References
1. Spinks, R. (2017). Disposable tampons aren't sustainable, but do women want to talk about it?. [online] The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/apr/27/disposable-tampons-arent-sustainable-but-do-women-want-to-talk-about-it [Accessed 9 Nov. 2017].
2. Women's Environmental Network. (2017). Environmenstrual. [online] Available at: https://www.wen.org.uk/environmenstrual/ [Accessed 9 Nov. 2017].
3. Schopick, J. (2017). The Environmental Impact of Everyday Things. [online] The Chic Ecologist. Available at: http://www.thechicecologist.com/green-living/the-environmental-impact-of-everyday-things/ [Accessed 9 Nov. 2017].
4. Coalition, P. (2015). Plastic Pollution and Climate Change. [online] Plastic Pollution Coalition. Available at: http://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/pft/2015/11/17/plastic-pollution-and-climate-change [Accessed 11 Nov. 2017].
