Believe it or not, making the switch to cloth pads is empowering! You have control over your menstrual care, you are not at the mercy of your local supermarket stocking your favourite brand of sanitary pads and you are not having to give your money to a huge corporation that shame’s Women for having periods. After all, if it’s not shameful why do we need discreet packaging? or Chemical perfumes? But on a side note, you know that ripping sound? The one you make when you have to remove your pad from your underwear. You know the one I’m talking about right? Well, you’ll never have to hear that sound again, with cloth pads they are completely silent and make no crinkling sounds. And with around 4 plastic bags worth of plastic in just one, Yes, just one pad they are not only bad for your body but bad for the planet too. And let’s not mention that ridiculous luxury goods tax that we have to pay every month!
But you have to wash them I hear you ask? I don’t want to have to wash them. Well, let your washing machine do all the work for you. We now have very effective detergents and laundry powders so you don’t have to worry about hygiene. Just throw them into the washing machine with your towels or any other laundry that has to be washed at 30c/40c. As for hanging them out to dry, I promise you won’t die of mortification. I guarantee that no one will notice them hanging out on your washing line amongst all your other laundry.
You can start off with panty liners if you don’t want to deal with the blood and even if you only switch to cloth panty liners you will be saving yourself a lot of money and helping out the planet too.
As a society, we’ve been told that disposability is convenience and cheaper! But it’s not, it’s costing us and the planet. Take a minute to consider the resources that are used to make your sanitary pad, the electricity, the raw materials, the plastic beads, the petrol, the packaging all for a product that you are going to use once for 4 hr? then throw away, for it to take up to 500 years to biodegrade. One cloth pad is estimated to replace over 500 disposable sanitary pads.
Like it or not, we can’t keep consuming resources and products at the current rate and making the switch to modern cloth pads is really easy and doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. I’ve been using cloth pads for 7 years and my period hasn’t cost me a penni! After the initial investment my cloth pads and menstrual cup paid for themselves within a year.
In short modern cloth pads are the future! Convenient, healthier, better for the environment and cost-effective so why not give them a try?
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