What type of waste is it?

Average women throw about 150 kg of mostly non biodegradable absorbents every year. According to the period of change a campaign started “Kachraa project”.

One major issue of sanitary waste has always been their categorization, i.e. “whether it is household, biomedical or plastic waste.” says Swati Sing Sambyal, Senior Research Associate, at centre for science and Environment.

Soiled napkins, diapers, condoms and blood soaked cottons, which are household waste according to municipal solid waste rules, 2000, are disposed off after segregation into biodegradable & non-biodegradable components.

However, biomedical wastes rule, 1998, says that items contaminated with blood and body fluids, including cotton, dressings, soiled paper casts, lines and beddings are biomedical wastes and should be incinerated, autoclaved or micro waved to destroy pathogens.

Impact on Environment

Each and every pad has a layer of plastic gel, an ingredient which is not easily dissolved in/on earth. It is not biodegradable and it takes around 800 years to dissolve a single pad on earth. If it is so, then just imagine the amount of used pads which are already thrown at dump yard.

“Due to the lack of segregation of waste in India, there is hardly any documentation on this”. The sanitary waste is driven out of the city and buried in a landfill on the outskirts of a city. At times, they are shredded before being buried.

Almost 90% of sanitary napkins are made up of plastic. Thin top layers on napkin, the dry weave top sheet, is made of polypropylene (plastic polymer). Padding is mostly wood pulp mixed with super absorbent polymers and leak proof layer is made from an impermeable polythylene, according to ecofemme, Pondicherry based social enterprise working on menstrual hygiene management. Plastic used in sanitary napkin has negative consequences on environment.

2011 study titled “Sanitary protection”: Every woman health right estimated that only 12% of 335 million menstruating women have access to disposable sanitary napkins. Environment portal down to earth estimated that 432 million pads are undisposed every month.

Side Effect on Animals

When used sanitary pads are thrown in dump yard, it pollutes air and soil. Simultaneously it enters in the bodies of animals such as cows, dogs, pigs, etc., who roam around dump yard in search of food. For e.g. if dog eats sanitary pad, it begins choking, exhibits abdominal pain, gets constipation or diarrhea. It is definitely a medical emergency.

If a cow eats pad, it begins spoiling her digestive system and it reduces her hunger. Like if cow eats 3 kgs of fodder every day, she might start having it lesser day by day. It reduces life span of cows too. Cows start giving lesser milk and that too of poor quality of nutrition. We drink cow milk, which will be automatically not good by quality.

Side effect on Human Beings

Sanitary napkins are collected as household waste by garbage collectors. Waste pickers separate out soiled napkins from recyclable items by hand, exposing themselves to micro-organisms like e.coli, salmonella, staphylococcus, HIV and pathogens that cause hepatitis and tetanus. This is because often after collecting pads as household waste they segregate the garbage manually.

Various wrong practices of Disposal

Appropriate disposal of used menstrual material is still lacking in many countries of the world. Most of the countries have developed techniques to manage their fecal and urinary wastes but, because of lack of menstrual management practices in world, most of women dispose off their sanitary pads or other menstruation articles into domestic solid wastes or garbage bins that ultimately become part of solid wastes. In rural areas, there are many options for disposing menstrual waste such as by burying, burning and throwing in garbage or in pit latrines.

Behavior of women regarding disposal is different when being at home compared to away from home. At home, they dispose waste by wrapping and throwing it in the dustbin along with other domestic waste. The disposing habits change according to the place. In public places, prior to having knowledge about the consequences of flushing the pads, they flush them into toilets or wrap and throw them in the dustbins. Where dustbins are not placed they leave the soiled pads wrapped or unwrapped in toilet corners. This makes toilets dirty, breeding place for flies and mosquitoes, and also unhygienic for other toilet users as well as cleaners. In many cities, the persons who manage the public toilet always complain of blockage of sewage system because of flushing of sanitary pads or rags in the toilet.

Nowadays, mostly women/ girls prefer commercial sanitary pads and tampons which are made up of super absorptive materials like polyacrylate. These pads and tampons when flushed into the toilets they get saturated with liquid and swell up, thus resulting in sewage backflow, a serious health hazard. The adhesive wings and the perforated plastic layers in the commercial sanitary napkins are not easily bio-degradable. The sewage blockages were mostly due to accumulation of excessive quantity of solid waste or sand which results in hardening of the sludge in the pits. Blockage of sewage system is a global problem and major contributing factor is flushing of menstrual products in toilets.

Also, deodorized sanitary products used by women/ girls contain chemicals used in bleaching such as organo-chlorines which when buried in the soil disturb the soil micro flora and the decomposition takes time. People living alongside river banks throw menstrual waste into water bodies which contaminate the water. These materials soaked with blood are breeding places for germs and pathogenic microbes. The unawareness of people of not knowing the disadvantages of this has forced Union Government of India to start a new project “Namami Gange” in June 2014 with the budget outlay of Rs. 20, 000 Crore. This project aims to clean the water all the rivers by removing this hazardous waste and other wastes.

Incineration is a better technique to dispose of menstrual waste but burning of pads releases harmful gases that affect health and environment. Burning of inorganic material at low temperature releases dioxins which are toxic and carcinogenic in nature.