Petitioning for plastic-free period products

Plastic is clearly not needed in period products.

Conventional period products contain up to 90 per cent plastic and are constantly being manufactured, are used for between 4-8 hours, then disposed of.

They then take over 500 years to break down – meaning that if Jane Austen had used them hers would still be decomposing today…

And when they are incorrectly flushed down toilets they get into rivers and oceans and end up on beaches; a report by the European Commission found that period items are the fifth most common waste washed up on beaches.

A shocking 2.5 million tampons, 1.4 million pads and 700,000 pantyliners are flushed in the UK every single day.

This pollutes and negatively impacts the environment, and contributes to ocean plastic, which kills around 1 million sea birds and 100,000 sea mammals, marine turtles and countless fish yearly.

Over time their plastic content disintegrates, but into smaller pieces, known as micro-plastics and fibres, which pose a further threat to marine-life and ecosystems.

They also make up over 200,000 tonnes of landfill waste every year.

And any not sent to landfill may well be incinerated – with the potential to release toxins, given their high plastic and synthetic content.

No matter where they end up, whether at the bottom of the sea, in landfill or on a beach, they will remain there for hundreds of years and pose a constant danger to animals and birds.

The adverse impact that single-use plastic is having on our health and the environment has been gaining huge media coverage, and because there are already so many companies out there producing eco-friendly versions it is obvious now more than ever that plastic is clearly not needed in period products.

It is crucial that we bring about change so that these – essential – products inflict minimum damage.

This is why Ella Daish and currently over 192,000 supporters of the petition she set up are calling on the companies and supermarkets manufacturing single-use period products to take responsibility for the environmental impacts they are having and to make this change happen – by going plastic-free.

Please sign and share her petition. Thanks.