In a world of single-use items, reusables are definitely attractive as a way of reducing environmental impact. This week’s post will compare major reusable menstrual products and their single-use equivalents, both in end-use waste volume and in price points. Hopefully part three of this series will be enough to help you make a more informed decision, should you choose to do so.
Gaining even a rough understanding of how many people in the United States alone are using single-use menstrual products helps us to understand how pervasive plastic waste is in our landfills. It is my intention with this post to have some fun crunching some numbers and to get a sense of how much of an impact our decisions have on the planet.
This series follows upon my Zero-Waste Lent experience last year, during which I tried not to generate any landfill waste, even while on my period. After the success of that post, I have intended for almost a year now to dive into some more detailed numbers around just how much waste is created by menstrual products in the US and what we can do about it.