3/5/2018 Disposing Of A Sanitary Fad?

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17 JULY 2017 SOCIETY SANITARY PADS

Disposing Of A Sanitary Fad?

Indian women are warming towards a movement that seeks the return of traditional
menstrual care
ARUSHI BEDI

WORKSHOP
In Delhi, on alternate methods of menstrual hygiene

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Rituja Deshpanday recently chose to make quite a surprise change to her routine around what comes as a
monthly ritual lasting ve-odd days: she switched from sanitary napkins to cloth pads. The factory-made
absorbent had been integral to the Delhiite’s personal hygiene since adolescence, but today the
thirtysomething is dismissive of the notion that folded cotton fabric isn’t an advisable option during periods.
Far from that, Rituja now avers that using cloth isn’t bad at all. “Yeah, it’s almost a radical step for someone
who has always used disposables,” she shrugs. “I used those napkINS because we grew up believing they are
the only method for sanitation.”

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Apparently, a growing set of women in urban India no longer believe so—and are looking for alternatives.
Quite a few among them have become more open to different kinds of reusables: loose cloth, cloth pads,
menstrual cups. While clean habits still remain the fundamental principle, this change in mindset is driven by
a growing green consciousness.

Sanitary pads add This trend of moving away from sanitary pads is shaping up as a movement, partly
to 3% of India’s buoyed by parallel efforts to spread public awareness around alternative forms of
sanitation. For instance, the workshops run by Delhi-based entrepreneur Priyanka
waste. Data shows
Jain, besides  a clutch of YouTube channels, to sensitise women on the subject,
that half of our
while also throwing light on pertinent ecological issues. “Sanitary waste accounts
rural and three- for about 3 per cent of all waste in our country. The pads are not being disposed of
fourth urban as biochemical waste as they should ideally be,” she says.
women use this
If urban women have now begun to shun disposables in however small numbers,
non-decomposable rural areas are largely on the older, reverse trend still—outside the loop but being
item. brought in. Soon women there will confront the con icting messaging: the glossy
ads of the modern type versus the bene ts, now being cited, of the traditional
methods of managing menstruation. Which side will win? The picture right now is
complicated.

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While companies tout the bene ts of napkins—which have a global history of a few dozen decades, with the
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rst commercially manufactured sanitary pads launched in the US in the last leg of the 19th century—experts
say the ‘sanitary pad revolution’ may have already come and gone in the country. Disposables were largely
seen  as aiding the kind of mobility that modern life demands of women, with many joining the formal
workforce—unlike the old days where social seclusion was taken for granted. But many women are coming
around to the view that traditional forms of menstrual care far exceed disposables in comfort as well as
hygiene.

Of cial data shows almost a half of India’s rural women and more than three-fourths of their urban
counterparts use sanitary pads. The government’s 2015-16 National Family Health survey pegs their
percentage gures at 48.55 and 77.5 respectively. It rubbishes a study which concluded that only 12 per cent of
Indian women use sanitary pads while others rely on methods such as cloth, leaves and at times even ash. For,
this survey—its gure is often quoted in write-ups—conducted by AC Nielsen and Plan India used a minuscule
sample size of 1,033 women, which least re ects the situation on ground.

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It was as an improvement over ‘unhealthy’ traditional methods of sanitation that napkins, primarily of foreign
make, were introduced in rural and urban India in the last century. And that naturally brought in a narrative
about pads being safer. Take the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Seattle-based private venture has
invested close to $3 million over the past few years in a variety of projects related to the development of a
reusable and self-decontaminating sanitary pad in developing nations. UNICEF too pushes the idea of using
sanitary pads as a much preferred option for women under the world body’s programme called WASH (water,
sanitation, hygiene).

The biggest push, though, comes from the usual suspect: the napkin-producing multinationals that control
more
  than two-thirds of the India’s sanitary pad market. Sinu Joseph, who is the managing trustee of Mythri
Speaks Trust that works with menstrual health in the country, says such manufacturers use ‘advocacy groups’
as fronts for sanitary napkin promotion. “There is an obvious foreign push to penetrate the Indian market
because a majority of the manufacturers are foreign companies,” she says. “While this is the case, the front is
usually a charitable entity, especially when it comes to rural India.”

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What’s more, foreign funding usually goes to NGOs in the hope that more awareness of sanitary pads would
eventually help such companies penetrate the rural market, according to Joseph. She recalls how four MNCs
had approached her as well to promote sanitary napkins in rural India—an offer Mythri Speaks refused. “Most
other NGOs working on menstrual hygiene in India have grabbed the opportunity,” she adds. “It’s an irony that
these organisations are trying to earn a living in the name of promoting menstrual hygiene, and are
themselves being taken for a ride by big corporates through global grants.”

 
Manufacturing standards of sanitary pads too remain suspect in India, where Disposables are
companies haven’t updated formulae since the 1980s. Such products can y under being replaced by
the radar on several parameters, such as pH balance (in the context of the capacity
cloth pads that can
of the napkin to impact cells and tissues of the human body) and allied safety
be reused. The
concerns. Experts say they have been told by manufacturers themselves that
popular brands have a different quality for India and poorer nations, compared to
market is also
the developed ones. Indian consumers are believed to be price-conscious, selling menstrual
prompting large manufacturers to cut down on the quality. cups and pads
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bre.

Rural women, according to Joseph who has interacted with women through the country about the subject, are
“well aware” of sanitary pads. The oft-cited argument that napkins are unaffordable also does not hold true:
the cheapest variety costs only Rs 22 for eight pads. Experts in the eld say that it’s because they prefer cloth
pads that most women in India’s villages don’t buy napkins. “For instance, tribal women in interior areas
refuse to use disposables since they’re particular about not littering their villages,” adds Joseph.

Priyanka’s organisation is working on a campaign named Green The Red that uses volunteers across India to
promote environment-friendly options for sanitation. Her portal, Hygiene And You, sells such products. Have
their sales gone up over time? “Well, I’ve noticed a shift towards alternate methods in the past couple of
years,” she says. “Women were initially reluctant to go back to traditional options since they were conditioned
to believe that not only are pads more hygienic but that they are a status symbol of sorts. After consistently
telling them about the bene ts and doing away with myths about cloth napkins, many have begun adopting
traditional methods.”

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Many other organisations too have taken to manufacturing more eco-friendly options. For instance, Saathi
pads are manufactured using banana bres locally sourced from Gujarat. There are other endeavours to sell
cloth pads that resemble disposables in shape and size and come in attractive packaging.

If cloth had been thought to be unhygienic, it is also because of a taboo: tradition does not allow or encourage
women to dry their menstruation cloth in the sun or wash it with other clothes. Now, as women both urban as
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