While it is appreciable that women are slowly moving towards hygienic menstrual products, at the same time the side effects of using sanitary napkins cannot be ignored.
Sanitary napkins are also detrimental to nature when it comes to disposal. As sanitary napkins are mostly made up of plastic, it takes more than 600 years to decompose.
Apart from the product used in its manufacturing, napkins contaminated with blood are a biological hazard and pose great health risks for the waste collector. In a lifetime, any person who uses sanitary napkin releases about 80-90 Ltr of blood, which is a biological hazard. So, if one woman is creating so much waste, then one can imagine all the waste generated by all the menstruating women. According to the Bio-Medical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 1998, items contaminated with blood and body fluids, including cotton, dressings are a bio-medical waste and should be incinerated and autoclaved to destroy pathogens.
Ideally, these pads should go to the incinerator. In India that happens rarely as we do not have incinerator that needs to be of world health organization standard. In India, we still have incinerator which is only around 400-500 degree Celsius, while as per WHO standards, it should be 800-degree Celsius.
While the PSF works to encourage the use of sanitary pads for hygiene, Parivartan Sandesh Foundation is also promoting safe disposal of sanitary napkins through Electrical Incinerators. These machines can be placed at Work places, Schools, Hospitals & Public Washrooms.
Below are the Incinerator Machines we are promoting as per need of the place & capacity of the machine:-