U.S. women landfill or incinerate 11.3 billion “disposable” menstrual products per year.
~ It takes approximately 500 years for one “disposable” menstrual pad to partially biodegrade.
~ ”Disposable” menstrual product manufacturers are not required to list their ingredients. Nail polish and shampoo manufacturers are.
~ Slim “maxi” paper products are impregnated with synthetic gelling crystals to increase absorbency. Their safety has been hotly debated in baby diapers but overlooked in “disposable” menstrual products.
~ Women are absent in upper management of Fortune 500 companies that manufacture “disposable” menstrual products.
~ An individual woman throws away about ten thousand paper pads or tampons in her lifetime.
~ The primary target markets of Fortune 500 companies are adolescent girls and underdeveloped countries like Eastern Europe, Soviet Union and the Pacific Rim.
~ In the U.S., menstrual pads are considered “medical devices”.
~ ”Disposable” menstrual products are not sterilized.
~ Chlorine bleaching of paper pulp results in 400-700 million pounds of toxins being dumped into U.S. waterways.
~ Dioxins, the side-effect of chlorine bleaching, are suspected carcinogens and resistant to biological breakdown.
~ Dioxins have been documented to impair liver function and depress human immune systems.
~ The ozone is thinned by the CFC’s that are produced in the manufacturing processes that utilize chlorine – plastics, paints, dyes, bleaching agents, cleaning solvents, aerosols, deodorants, refrigerants, and wood preservatives.
~ Chlorine was the noxious substance used to suffocate soldiers during the First World War.
~ French nurses experimented with the first “disposable” menstrual products from cellulose surgical gauze during the First World War.
~ Trout store dioxins up to 86,000 times more than the water they find themselves in. We eat these fish!
~ Humans are harboring increasing levels of dioxin in their fatty tissues and breast milk. Ed. notes: Formula also has high dioxin levels, so this is not a reason not to breastfeed.
~ An estimated two million seabirds and one hundred thousand marine mammals die annually from swallowing plastics including tampon applicators.
Call the 1-800 number on “disposable” menstrual products and all white paper products and insist on products that have not been bleached at any stage of production with any chlorine.
Sources: Whitewash, Greenpeace
Please consider buying cloth and reusing. The benefits to you and the planet are huge!
