A quiet revolution has been taking place in the menstrual hygiene space as more women are switching to eco-friendly menstrual products. At the same time, more entrepreneurs are entering the space to cater to this growing demand. Along with reusable menstrual cups and cloth pads, the product shelf now also boasts of biodegradable pads. The latest to join the club is the Union government, which, earlier this month, coinciding with International Women’s Day, launched low-cost ‘100% biodegradable’ sanitary napkins.
But are civic agencies prepared to handle these biodegradable variants in its solid waste management system?
The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) introduced segregation-at-source in 2016. Under the new system, citizens were required to hand over their waste under separate categories, including dry, wet and sanitary. Sanitary waste includes sanitary napkins and diapers. People were asked to give away the sanitary waste wrapped in paper with a red cross over it, indicating that it was sanitary waste. Once collected, this would eventually end up being incinerated.
However, by its own admission, even to this day, sanitary waste that lands in the BBMP’s solid waste management system is no more than 0.3% of the total waste collected, which is around 4,000 tonnes. The actual potential sanitary waste is said to be around 3% of the total waste collected.
Social factors
‘Taboo’ and ‘embarrassment’ continue to be major contributing factors, said Sarfaraz Khan, Joint Commissioner, Solid Waste Management and Health, BBMP. “Things such as adult diapers, baby diapers, sanitary napkins and condoms fall under this category. But people are not handing it over to us. Instead, they are either flushing it down their toilets, which is choking the underground drainage system, or they are disposing it off on the sly in black-spots,” he said.
With the existing plan to collect sanitary waste not yielding the desired results, the palike has given little thought about how to deal with the new, biodegradable variants. Mr. Khan said it also had to be ascertained if the products were indeed biodegradable before coming up with a plan for it. But the response to reusable menstrual products, especially in the ‘Compost Santhes’, has been encouraging, he said.
Disposal by users
But makers of biodegradable napkins said disposal could be done by the users themselves. Siddharthi, daughter of Jayashree Pawar, who started Teeratan Healthcare, the Goa-based maker of Sakhi biodegradable sanitary napkins, said, “There are different options: either to bury it in the ground as it decomposes in two months, or open the pad, flush the cotton because it gets dissolved, and the outer cloth cover can be burnt.”
Kristin Kagetsu, from Saathi, said burning the pads would defeat the purpose of having biodegradable sanitary napkins. “These pads take three to six months to decompose. They could go to a landfill as well,” she said.
