Plastic waste - tampons

Tampons and sanitary pads are estimated to produce over 100 billion pieces of waste every year. More than 80 per cent of single-use period products contain synthetic materials and plastics. Yet despite half of women reporting concern over the environmental impact of their period products in a 2018 report by Mintel, we’re yet to see any significant shift to reusables such as cloth pads or menstrual cups. For many, applicators are the most comfortable way to use tampons. But applicators are easily flushed away and end up in the sea, on the beach and in the stomachs of the fish we eat. Even biodegradable applicators on landfill sites take a very long time to break down. According to the Women’s Environmental Network, there are around nine plastic tampon applicators for every 1km of UK beach.

It was when I was running an online period subscription service that I realised how serious the problem of menstrual plastic waste is. Our site offered both disposable and reusable products, yet virtually no one wanted to buy these existing sustainable options. It became clear familiarity was behind women resisting the switch to reusables and decided to rethink the problem. Some women have never even heard of menstrual cups, so how can they be expected to adopt them without hesitation? DAME decided to design our own version of a green tampon that women might feel more comfortable using: the world’s first reusable tampon applicator, called ‘D’. Every time a woman switches to using the D, she will prevent approximately 12,000 pieces of plastic from entering oceans and landfill in her lifetime.