Stats and Facts U.S. women landfill or incinerate 11.3 billion "disposable" menstrual products per year. It takes approximately 500 years for one "disposable" menstrual pad to partially biodegrade. "Disposable" menstrual product manufacturers are not required to list their ingredients. Nail polish and shampoo manufacturers are. Slim "maxi" paper products are impregnated with synthetic gelling crystals to increase absorbency. Their safety has been hotly debated in baby diapers but overlooked in "disposable" menstrual products. Women are absent in upper management of Fortune 500 companies that manufacture "disposable" menstrual products. An individual woman throws away between 10,000 and 15,000 paper pads or tampons in her lifetime. The primary target markets of Fortune 500 companies are adolescent girls and underdeveloped countries like Eastern Europe, Soviet Union and the Pacific Rim. In the U.S., menstrual pads are considered "medical devices". "Disposable" menstrual products are not sterilized. Chlorine bleaching of paper pulp results in 400-700 million pounds of toxins being dumped into U.S. waterways. Dioxins, the side-effect of chlorine bleaching, are suspected carcinogens and resistant to biological breakdown. Dioxins have been documented to impair liver function and depress human immune systems. The ozone is thinned by the CFC's that are produced in the manufacturing processes that utilize chlorine - plastics, paints, dyes, bleaching agents, cleaning solvents, aerosols, deodorants, refrigerants, and wood preservatives. Chlorine was the noxious substance used to suffocate soldiers during the First World War. French nurses experimented with the first "disposable" menstrual products from cellulose surgical gauze during the First World War. Trout store dioxins up to 86,000 times more than the water they find themselves in. We eat these fish! Humans are harboring increasing levels of dioxin in their fatty tissues and breast milk. (Ed. notes: Formula also has high dioxin levels, so this is not a reason not to breastfeed) An estimated two million seabirds and one hundred thousand marine mammals die annually from swallowing plastics including tampon applicators. Call the 1-800 number on "disposable" menstrual products and all white paper products and insist on products that have not been bleached at any stage of production with any chlorine. sources: Whitewash, Greenpeace Please consider buying cloth and reusing. The benefits to you and the planet are huge!

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Female Ecology Notes
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