In honor of Earth day this month, we want to focus on how interdependent women’s health and the Earth's health really are.
-While we have told you how great pads are for menstruators health, it is important to know that not all pads are created equally. Most pads are made with different materials that are not always plant based, some are artificially created materials, and the ones that are actually cotton are rarely produced without chemicals such as bleach, which is not only harmful to the earth, but also one’s body. Additionally, most of the cotton is not organic. moonPads use 100% organic cotton imported from Turkey for our high performance pads.
-the most devastating part about pads though, is the plastic waste. Conventional plastic is a byproduct of oil. That’s right, the oil that we put in the cars to make them run. If you have seen oil spilled in water, you know that it does not mix in. It is the same with plastic into soil or water- plastic never actually decomposes. It takes 450 years for plastic to break down, but it never disappears. Pads are usually made of plastic, the backside of each pad is plastic, the wrapper and even the packaging. If each of the 1.8 menstruating women in the world is using about 3 boxes of pads per monthly moon cycle….for 40 years of periods, that's about 11,000 pads per woman! That is a whole lot of plastic in the landfill!
-At MoonPads we want to change that! We want our bodies and our earth to be healthy and recognize that without a healthy earth, we too will become quite sick. That is why our pads are made with bio-plastic! Bioplastic is a material that mimics plastic with its light and flexible and waterproof qualities, but- it is made from plants and is 100% biodegradable!
- While those users in the cities can easily throw away your pads and they will go to a landfill, we encourage rural women to throw the pads and wrappers right into the composting toilet, or find a place to dig a compost hole where you can dispose of your pads and any food scraps, ash from the fire or other organic waste. Menstrual blood is actually very rich in nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium—the very same combo you'll find in store-bought fertilizer for plants. So the compost made with these pads will make soil much more rich than any manure or other additives!
MoonPads decompose over 3 months time and return back into soil in high temperatures. The plastic pad does no such thing!
-Please reconsider how much plastic you use, where you dispose of your plastic and using bio-plastic such as moonpads, to honor both the earth, yourselves and generations to come!