New hygiene product can aid green effort

By Rachel Solnick     1/15/09 6:00pm

Every time I tune into the increasingly prevalent environmental news, everywhere from documentaries to commercials to blogs to newspaper headlines, I tend to feel like the sky is falling and the world is burning (or, rather, melting). It's easy to feel like there is nothing we, as mere players in such a vast system, can do to make a difference. But there is. There is the truism of "recycle, reduce, reuse," and while they are all as important as ever, the "reduce" facet deserves more attention than it normally gets. Well, maybe it is time to look into this "reduce" concept.Luckily, there is something relatively new on the horizon that most people probably don't know about yet. And you'll have to excuse me, guys, because although the environmental issue affects all of us, this column is mainly directed at women. Enter: the menstrual cup.

This small silicon cup looks like a bell or a half of a lemon and is used like a tampon, but it is reusable so there is no plastic applicator or cotton wad for the trash. While it is not a big player in the grand scheme of the environmental problem, there is no doubt that the millions of women in industrialized countries using disposable feminine hygiene products create vast amounts of unnecessary trash that strains the sewage systems and waste disposal every month.

To give an example, Tampax brand tampons, only a portion of the worldwide market, are used by over 100 million women and are sold in 150 countries. The average woman will spend around $1,300 on female hygiene products and will use around 9,000 tampons or pads in her lifetime.

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If this isn't shocking to you on an individual basis, consider 3.2 billion of the women on the planet, many of whom had not used such products in the past, but with continual industrialization of countries like India and China, will start to do so and contribute to the needless pollution. In the United States alone, an estimated 12 billion sanitary pads and 7 billion tampons are disposed of each year. Throwing numbers around can have a numbing effect on attention spans, so just consider this: None of those wads of cotton and tubes of plastic has to be dumped into landfills, clogged inside toilets and washed out to sea if women simply switched to reusable menstrual cups instead.

A survey conducted by an entrepreneurship class at Rice two years ago found that 88 percent of respondents would like to try a menstrual cup. The newly instated Green Funds Committee could be a prime motivator in getting women to use these products. Wiess College's Green Fund Committee and college approved subsidizing one fourth of the cost of buying a $20 "Divacup" from Amazon.com for all interested Wiess women. Considering the high interest and the environmental benefits to reap from the switch from tampons to menstrual cups, other colleges' Green Fund committees should follow Wiess's example.

If you are wondering why the menstrual cups are not more popular, it's in part because they are relatively new - the rubber Keeper was introduced in the late '80s, the Mooncup from the United Kingdom in 1996 and then the Canadian Divacup only in 2003. Also, unlike Tampax and Always, which are part of the billion-dollar Proctor & Gamble Corporation, these menstrual cup companies do not spend tens of millions on advertising campaigns. Also, it is only recently that talking about menstruation has become less of a taboo topic. Remember poor Carrie's confusion about her period in the 1976 movie Carrie?

If the environmental reasons are not enough to convince you, on a more personal note Divacups are made from medical grade silicon and have had no reported cases of the Toxic Shock Syndrome that is associated with tampon use. Divacups cost $20 dollars and last you 10 years; compare this to the relative $700 you would spend on tampons for the same length of time. Admittedly, tampons are more convenient, but I'd rather not flush $680 down the toilet.

It used to be that the phrase "tree hugger" was a derogatory term for environmental fanatics. Now www.treehugger.com is one of the top sustainability blogs on the Web. It is time we all realized that this trend of being environmentally conscious is not about being a liberal, a hippie or an activist, it's about having a conscience.

Rachel Solnick is a Wiess College junior.

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