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Long-lasting, comfortable, stain-free and affordable – these are the thoughts that come to every woman's mind when she picks up a disposable sanitary napkin.
What doesn't occur to most women is that over a billion of these non-compostable sanitary pads are making their way into sewerage systems, landfills, fields and water bodies in India every month, posing huge environmental and health risks.
Perhaps realising the growing problem of menstrual waste, the Narendra Modi government came out with new Solid Waste Management (SWM) rules in 2016.
These rules makes it obligatory for the manufacturers, brand owners or marketing companies of sanitary napkins and diapers to provide a pouch or a wrapper for their safe disposal.
But that doesn't seem to be enough.
Myles Ellege, Senior Director at RTI International, a leading non-profit applied research and consulting organisation based in North Carolina, US, said although some Indian states and cities have given "some attention" to waste segregation or waste management with incinerators at schools or institutional settings, "it is not widespread".
According to Shradha Shreejaya, an active campaigner in Sustainable Menstruation Kerala Collective, a Kerala-based NGO that promotes biodegradable and toxin-free sanitary products, "India has been very messy about dealing with its sanitary waste..." and described the new rules as "very weak".
Shradha Shreejaya is also a supporter of EcoFemme, which manufactures and promotes reusable cloth pads.
Arundati Muralidharan, Manager-Policy (WASH in Health and Nutrition, WASH in Schools) at WaterAid India, an international charity that works in the area of water, sanitation and hygiene services, said the government has menstrual waste "very much" on its radar and has been "thinking" about its management.
In a survey, Path, a global leader in innovations – which works with industries, governments and other stakeholders, to bridge gaps between the supply and demand of quality products, and is currently working on testing a hybrid reusable sanitary pad – estimated that over a billion of these non-compostable pads are being dumped in landfills and sewerage systems.
With no knowledge of how to dispose of them, most women just throw them in the garbage bin, which usually gets mixed up with dry, wet and hazardous waste.
The problem does not end here. The plastic layer which is used to make it stain-free, and the chemicals used in producing it, get further transferred between soil, water and air, experts added.
Most women and girls in rural India use cloth, which, if not dried in proper sunlight for reuse, could lead to further health complications.
Activists are advocating using reusable eco-friendly sanitary pads, including cloth pads, biodegradable pads and cups.
According to Manish Malani, co-founder of She Cups, they came to know about menstrual cups when they were looking for economical diagnostic kits for cervical cancer patients.
As innovation is the key to this issue, Ellege said they are “working to design waste handling and treatment systems that will process the waste, and potentially use the by-products as mechanism for advancing waste-to-energy technology solutions on-site.”
(This piece has been published in an arrangement with IANS)
(Kavita Bajeli-Datt can be contacted at kavita.bajeli@gmail.com. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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Published: 05 Jun 2017,06:36 PM IST