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 about ten thousand 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!