Eradicate pads and tampons! Here's why..
Hello, This month we are taking a trip into the stories behind our menstrual products. Let me start with some astounding stats...
Did you know?
An average menstruating person uses over 16,000 tampons or pads in their life time 🙀
Almost half of women surveyed still flush their tampons down the toilet rather than disposing of them in the bin. Put into numbers that’s 2 billion sanitary items flushed down the toilet every year leading to polluted rivers and seas. This flushing of sanitary items down the toilet also costs UK taxpayers a whopping £88 million pound each year.
Our mission is to eradicate disposable menstrual pads and tampons!
Let us tell you what yuckies are in those pads and tampons…
OIL AND TAMPONS
Some tampons and pads contain cotton but most contain rayon, a synthetic material. Synthetic rayon is a petroleum based product, using precious and polluting oil in their production, yuck! There is some evidence that synthetic fibres can pull too much moisture from the vaginal walls and stick to the soft skin there, leaving tiny synthetic fibres that may increase the risk of Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS).
But cotton is okay right?
Well, not so much. Do you know that cotton is considered the world’s dirtiest crop due to its heavy use of pesticides. Aldicarb, cotton’s second best-selling insecticide is acutely poisonous to humans and wildlife and is still used in 25 countries, including the U.S, where 16 states reported finding it in their groundwater (that’s very bad for the ecosystem).
Worldwide, cotton covers 2.5% of the cultivated land and cotton growers use 16% of the world’s pesticides. What are the chances of these pesticide leaching through your skin? Quite high because the skin inside and around the vagina is among the thinnest layers protecting our body. According to a recent study out of the University of La Plata, 85% of all samples of tampons tested positive for glyphosate (a pesticide) and 62 % also tested positive for AMPA, the environmental metabolite. Now what is Glyphosphate you say? It is one of the most widely used herbicides in the world and commonly known as weedkiller.
NOT SO FANTASTIC PLASTIC
That fantastic plastic is something that we cannot live without, in fact when I writing this blog, I am using plastic keyboard. Its pervasive! Back to the topic. Both tampons and pads are made up of plastics. The applicator in tampon, the packaging and leak proof layer of sanitary pads are both made up of plastics. Plastics are problematic on their own as they take more than 600 years to degrade. In fact the first plastic ever made in the world have still not degraded. Plastic does not breakdown but breaks up and is retained in the earths surface for a very long time. So even though they are called disposable in reality they are not.
CHEMICALS
Pads contain special chemicals and ingredients that make them able to absorb 10x their weight in liquid but the effect of these chemicals have not been comprehensively studied for their affect on the environment. When we buy cosmetic products we can get information on what they contain and how they are made, but when it comes to something we use every day that is in contact with our intimate parts, we have no knowledge of what they contain. It time we lobby manufacturers to disclose and test the ingredients that make sanitary towels so absorbent. If you pour water and cut open a pad, you see a swollen gel like substance, but do you know what it is?
MORE CHEMICALS!
Chemicals like bleach and toxins are frequently used in the manufacturing of menstrual pads, and there’s some risk that a chemical residue could linger even through the production process, putting your health at risk. In addition to risking the health of the people who use tampons, the manufacturing process of these menstrual product causes damage to the environment. The toxic byproducts of producing tampons include chemicals like dioxins. Dioxins are carcinogenic and cause cancer. But could this also mean that this is a cause of endometriosis? Researches are still being conducted to find the correlation between the dioxin and endometriosis. Endometriosis affect every 1 in 10 women and is at high rise.
Why you should switch to WUKA 🙆🏽
- We are eco-friendly underwear. And comfortable, not to mention leak-free.
- One underwear will replace about 100 tampons, dramatically reducing the amount of waste created by sanitary pads and tampons because we are re-usables.
- The majority of fabric used to make WUKA is plant based material. We are using Tencel which is manufactured in a closed loop cycle, which mean the chemicals used to break down the cellulose is also recycled and used over and over again. This process was popularised by the famous eco-architect and his chemist colleague McDonough and Braungart in their book cradle to cradle
- Tencel is a fabric made up of Eucalyptus plant and requires no pesticides or herbicides to grow, it’s usually found in luxury fashion clothing due to its low volume product and high price.
- We also use Modal, which is second only to Tencel in its credentials. It is incredibly soft to touch and biodegradable.
- Women and men are equally valuable and deserve equal pay and opportunities. We provide not only fair wages and professional skill development but also necessary life-skill and personal development opportunities through our ethical manufacturing partner.
Convinced?
Then sign up with us now www.wuka.co.uk to join us on our Kickstarter launch day and #choosetoreuse
Thank you for reading and have a safe and happy period,
x Ruby
