I can see the cringing faces prepared for me to mention that awful, forsaken word. The word we rarely mention because of the taboo that comes with fertility and sexuality.
Menstruation, also known as “that time of the month,” “Aunt Flow” or my personal favorite, “the crimson tide,” has been a hidden, feminine world since before I can remember. But the impacts that our female hygiene products have on the environment, our bodies and even our sexuality goes beyond just the realm of double-X chromosomes.
In fact, with an estimated 85 million women of menstruating age in North America — each consuming about 11,000 tampons in her lifetime — the environmental impact of our product choices has the potential to be detrimental, especially in the case of the applicator tampon.
As it turns out, these nifty inventions that are meant to prevent women from touching themselves, ever, are also a painful thorn in the side of Mother Nature.
In 2010 alone, the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup Project collected 12,857 tampon applicators along the United States coasts — each of which can take up to 25 years to biodegrade in the ocean.
Girls, we know we’re not supposed to flush the applicators down the toilet, but even if we avoid this mess , it’s only one of many environmental problems the loveable plastic applicator has caused.
While plastic from tampons may only take six months to biodegrade versus the indefinite life cycle of sanitary pads, the main problem with plastic applicator tampons is their production.
According to The Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, which carried out a life cycle assessment of the environmental impact of tampons and sanitary pads, it’s the fossil-fuel-guzzling processing of low-density polyethelene that makes these products so lethal to the environment.
The long-lasting waste produced by this process, in addition to the resource-intense farming of cotton, makes you wonder what we’re really putting inside our bodies and if these “hygiene” products are even safe.
Aside from the pesticides and cancer-causing dioxins created during the production process, the FDA seems to think it’s perfectly acceptable to put mass quantities of unsterilized cotton where the sun doesn’t shine.
The idea that we’re continuously stuffing our bodies with what Planned Parenthood Northern New England notes as “often made from chlorine-bleached and pesticide-grown cotton blends” is shockingly disturbing.
And while the FDA says trace amounts of the carcinogenic rayon and dioxin are fine, using an average of 20 tampons a month for twelve months for about 30 years doesn’t sound trace by any means. That doesn’t sound like there’s a chance that we’ll get cancer — it sounds like we’re asking for it.
Instead we should be asking for better alternatives — safer choices for the environment, our bodies and, shockingly, something that does require feeling ourselves out.
I realize I sound disgusting, but think about it, ladies: Between our legs is an internal world most of us have never even seen. Until Eve Ensler’s “Vagina Monologues,” most women seemed to have forgotten they had any right to a personal relationship with their lady bits.
Even in the 21st century, this self-love is still foreign, but at least we’re starting somewhere. We’re beginning by keeping our bodies safe, by changing from toxic bleached cotton to organic cotton tampons without applicators. Even better, some women are switching to reusable Lunapads or menstrual cups.
For fear of sounding like a scary hippie, I tell you the real change toward loving ourselves and loving our bodies starts in between our legs with a new way to welcome our monthly visitor.
 
Priyanka Bhatia is a 19-year-old pre-veterinary major from San Jose, Calif. Follow her on Twitter @TDR_PBhatia.
 
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Contact Priyanka Bhatia at [email protected]