I was passing by the washroom at my school and saw the housekeeping aunty picking up a pad which was not disposed of properly. I felt disgusted and wondered, how would aunty feel when it comes to eating after going through such a process of cleaning and ensuring that we are healthy.
Let me start off by sharing a story. A waste picker everyday picks up waste from houses and if it’s not segregated they have to do it. A lot of people do not wrap the pad. Workers then pick it up with their own hands. This affects their health. At times it’s difficult to identify sanitary pads. At times they just go off in the surroundings causing problems for the environment as they are not biodegradable. That disheartened me.
Every year in India 121 million women generate 12.3 billion pads of waste. Pads contain 90% of plastic which concludes that they are not eco friendly. Due to lack of awareness many women stop themselves from eco friendly period products like menstrual cup, cloth pads.
Therefore I thought of looking at this small issue which has a wide impact on society. I started an organization of my own with 3 friends of mine. We started at our school and then planned to grow outside school to create the most impact possible. The Janeev Organization, have launched the sanitary bag holder project, since May 2023 via where we distribute paper bag holders for disposing pads marked with a red dot to women in the community to make a difference, for free.
“So far, we have conducted over 10 drives in Pune reaching over 500 women and girls to educate them to bring this change and step towards a sustainable solution. And we distributed over 5000 paper bag holders for free. We also conducted a workshop where we educated women on menstruation and healthy period products. To reduce the sanitary waste, we are also planning to learn the art of making cloth pads, so that we can teach women how to make it which will benefit them with cost as well as the environment.
While we were conducting drives in societies, we did receive a lot of rejections. We mainly aimed to conduct drives in slum areas. The survey that we conducted with waste pickers revealed that many women in slum areas do not dispose of the pads properly. At times women were not welcoming and at times they were shy. We did not give up. Some drives were very quick where women were accepting. We distributed like 800 bags in an hour. Our aim is to reach every woman and ensure that our pad disposal system is clean.
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We spread awareness through social media as well!