In 2013, when we were new to Athimanjeri, there was no garbage dump here. I didn't really see a need for one as there was not much garbage. But in the following few years, this changed rapidly. We now have two 100 ton garbage pits that fill up in no time. This put me in touch with the stark reality -- just a handful of us making eco-friendly choices is not going to make a dent in the garbage produced.
When Corona was at its peak in 2020, I realized that this presented a unique chance for introducing cloth pads (an eco-friendly alternative to disposable sanitary napkins) in our village and town. I started making cloth pads with a small group adolescent boys and girls. My idea was to provide job opportunity locally and grow a few socially-responsible individuals who can carry this venture forward.
I wanted to keep the price low, to make it affordable for the people here. I priced them at ₹ 100, per pad. Armed with a bunch of our cloth pads, I started a campaign, in our town and nearby villages, about the financial and ecological implications of using disposable napkins. Whenever I had a captive audience I handed out free samples. Over the course of next eight months, I gained the following understanding about the lives of rural women and the various factors that are at play here:
- Cheap disposable pads are really cheap (₹ 5, per pad). Because of this highly subsidized rate, in many cases it makes very little economic sense to not use disposables.
- Women spend ₹ 50 - ₹ 150 per month on disposable napkins
- Many of them don't change their pads since every pad costs money. They use their pads for 8 - 12 hours!
- Young girls, women in their 20's and 30's do not want to wash cloth pads.
- Older women (40 and above) still use cloth
- Often a poor, semi-urban family shares their bathroom/toilet with other families. Soaking and washing cloth pads is not practical here.
- Government schools in Tamilnadu offer free disposable pads for girls from 9th grade onwards. Their families are not spending on pads. The staff at these schools siphon a part of these pads to their homes. Thus their relatives also get free pads.
- Government schools in Andhra Pradesh offer free pads for older girls. The girls toilets are equipped with incinerators. So these schools don't see how this can be an environmental pollutant.
- Women often develop allergies by using disposable pads, but they don't talk about that.
- Most women burn the used pads, only some bury them.
- Up to 10% of the women, between ages 25 and 35, have had their uterus removed for mysterious reasons.
- Interestingly, caste and class played a role in how menstruation could be talked about. The upper the caste or class was, the males in the family were not involved in the discussion.
