The good old saying ‘out of sight, out of mind’ rings so true when it comes to one time use period products. We chuck our rubbish in the bin, and then forget about them. BUT have you ever thought about where all that period plastic actually ends up?
Well, they go into our NZ landfills.
Disposable period products can take over 500 years to fully break down. Why? Because even 100% organic tampons and pads need to meet certain criteria to break down at all. Since landfills are closed holes these days there is no air or moisture in them, which are the sole components when it comes to breaking down our period waste.
An average person can throw away 39.5kg of single use period products over 10 years. With a population of about 2.5 million menstruators in New Zealand, that adds up to 98.75 million kilograms of period waste! That’s almost 10 million Kgs of period waste per year!
If we are consistently throwing away one time use period products, and they are consistently being taken to a landfill, what is going to happen?
By changing to reusables, New Zealanders have saved 1,693,721 kg CO² eq. Global warming potential reduction (greenhouse gases), and 1262 Tonnes of menstrual waste from going into landfills and the oceans.
The numbers are hectic! And can only get better and better with more and more people changing to reusables.
Do you choose to reuse?