Sunday, November 23, 2008

Reusability of Products

A lot of people from my generation are looking at ways to save the environment. While most people turn to recycling, they don’t realize that there is no way, or at least no efficient way, to recycle ninety-seven percent of the products we use. The majority of the products we use are not biodegradable, and the ones that are can take up to two to three hundred years to fully decompose. For some products such as water and paper, perhaps recycling is the best option. However, for other products, reusability would reduce wastage tremendously. For example, nine billion plastic bottles are produced annually in the United States alone. Four million plastic bottles are disposed every hour in America, and only one in about eighteen is recycled. This number could be vastly cut down if people started reusing there bottles, or invested in a flask, which might be expensive initially but would be much cheaper in the long run.

This idea of reusability got me looking at menstrual products, and how they are recycled. Turns out, they are not! The majority of tampons/pads end up in landfills or sewage treatment plants. Although the tampon/pad is biodegradable, the plastic applicator and packaging may not biodegrade for several hundred years. An average woman uses about fifteen thousand sanitary napkins or tampons in her lifetime, which is approximately two hundred fifty to three hundred pounds (Refer to Image One). There are alternatives to disposable napkins and tampons. Many companies have come up with reusable pads and other reusable menstrual products. Some women have resourced to making their own reusable sanitary napkins. Contrary to belief, these products can be much more comfortable and hygienic than disposable menstrual products. Women with vulvodynia (pain in the vulva) or allergies tend to use reusable menstrual products, but there is no reason why not all women can. Besides the fact that it would be much more environmentally friendly, the extra incentive to switch to reusable products could be cost efficiency. By using reusable menstrual products, one would be able to save over ninety percent of what they would spend on disposable products.

Another similar example is utilizing reusable contraception. Where most women spend twenty to thirty dollars a month on birth control pills and patches, they could invest in a cervical cap or a diaphragm (Refer to Image Two), which is more environmentally friendly, just as effective, and much lighter on the purse strings!

While these products are readily available, people are not aware how much they would be helping the environment by making these small changes in their lifestyle. Companies and society in general have made it too hard to reuse products, or rather they have made it too easy to use disposable products. Instead of trying to reduce the number of plastic bottles an average person uses, they are giving people extra incentive to but more bottles by selling them at cheaper prices if bought in bulk. And instead of promoting reusable menstrual products and contraception, it is being kept on a down low. In fact, it can be downright embarrassing buying reusable contraception because many a times you have to sit through a demonstration of how it is supposed to be inserted. If these products, and many other such products, were advertised and marketed like most regular products are, people would be helping the environment much more than do by just recycling.




Image One



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