Have you ever found yourself wondering what’s in period products? What are we women putting next to or into our most sensitive body part?
We deserve to know what’s in our tampons, pads and panty liners and should be concerned by any toxins contained within many conventional brands on the market. By asking questions and demanding transparency, we can fight the stigma and fight for cleaner, greener products.
Here are four shocking and important facts about period products:
1. What we put on or inside our vagina goes almost directly into our bloodstream
2. Several known toxic chemicals are found in conventional period products
3. Period product companies do not legally have to share their ingredients
4. Periods pollute (but they don’t have to!)
The average menstruating women will use 11,000-15,000 disposable period products in their lifetime. That is a lot of opportunity to opt for a more sustainable, plastic free period that will not only benefit our own body's health but will also reduce pollution of our earth’s soil and waterways.
Plastfree provide plastic free, organic, biodegradable, ultra-absorbent sanitary products. They wanted to make a product which was not only plastic free, chemical free, dioxin free and fragrance free in all layers, but also wanted it to be fit for its purpose & more.
We interviewed Plastfree who are passionate about period education to comment on why they do what they do. Here's what they have to say:
What is Plastfree's mission and why is period education so important for your organisation?
Our Mission is to make premium organic period products affordable and accessible to all.
Period education is important especially for our younger generation to know about our body, deal with period taboos, understand importance of sports and staying active, break the stigma by talking about it with men too.
How do you offer support and guidance to empower young females in the UK?
We offer talks in schools and colleges and also give a free school starter pack for Y6 onwards to normalise conversations regarding periods. We organise fund raisers for film screening like the Oscar winning Period End of Sentence. We support women owned local business in UK by buying their products and including them in our period kit for teens. We do period donations to women centres, homeless, food banks, charities that support women and children.
What would be the most important issues regarding period education right now as far as you are concerned?
The fact that conventional period products contain plastic that can cause immense damage to our environment by staying around in our landfills for up to 800 years, is what needs to be talked about more often along with the fact that staying active is essential whilst bleeding.
Find out more about Plastfree in their Behind The Label Story.
The four period facts at the beginning of this blog are taken from an article by Natracare - we advise reading the full article for more eye opening facts to consider!
