Menstruation is a natural physiological phenomenon for all women and girls; they experience it every month. Hygiene during menstruation is extremely vital to live a healthy and dignified life. Overall wellbeing of a woman depends primarily on her emotional and physical wellbeing. Sanitation, hygiene and reproductive health form the basis of menstrual hygiene management. Also, her emotional stability and strength depend on the fact that society and family provide the necessary support during menstruation. All said and done, she also has to be able to safely dispose of the menstrual waste. Sanitary waste related challenges and its management become vital as menstrual waste is an integral part of it.
Even in today’s modern world menstruation is a taboo subject. Restricting women from kitchen and religious places is common during menstruation. These are outdated social practices. Girls sometimes choose to skip school during periods as schools lack menstrual hygiene. Infact, some schools don’t have separate toilets for girls and the existing facilities are poor.
Sanitary Waste Management:
According to estimates 121 million women and adolescent girls use 8 sanitary napkins every month in India. Now that means annually it adds upto 113,000 tons of menstrual waste, thus putting pressure on sanitary waste management.
Conventional tools of sanitary waste management harm the environment especially water bodies. The usual way to dispose off used sanitary pads is mixing them with common garbage bins. Here the waste collector has to separate the menstrual waste from the rest of solid waste. This entire task is time-consuming, tough and extremely challenging. Thus, each house should have a disposal technique that is safe, and hygienic.
Controlled decentralized incineration is popular technique to dispose of used sanitary pads. It destroys pathogens and pad material. It helps in sanitary waste management. In the absence of this technique, most often the sanitary pads become a part of the solid waste or they end up in landfills. Thus, incineration seems to be the most preferred way of disposing of menstrual waste. Though it has its own drawbacks.
Drawbacks of incineration:
- It is an energy intensive operation.
- Leads to toxic fumes generation when the plastic is burnt.
- Costly procedure.
- Difficult to maintain.
Separate collection of sanitary waste is practised only in few cities in India. Sanitary waste from houses and other public spaces is collected along with dry or mixed waste. This waste that is collected together gets dumped in landfills. This surely isn’t the ideal way to treat waste. In different cities local authorities manage solid waste thus, sanitary waste is disposed of in varied manners in different cities.
Disposing of techniques differ in rural and urban areas. In some cities a proper segregation system is used for sanitary waste. In rural areas, sanitary waste is disposed of by burning or shallow burial. This certainly harms the waterbodies and air.
It is a harsh fact that there is dearth of awareness about organized feminine waste management. In many parts of the country, women dispose of sanitary napkins or the cloth they use during menstruation, in drains and potholes as they find it embarrassing and uncomfortable to dispose them of elsewhere. Some flush it in public toilets.
Many don’t want to dispose them of in a dustbin as they think it will bring them disgrace because, waste collectors might shun them if they notice used napkins. Due to sociocultural taboos and myths, the problem of sanitary and menstrual waste management is a challenge.
Thus, the primary responsibility of the community and the government is to educate women and their families about properly disposing of sanitary waste and menstrual waste.
Naree Care Services works with a 360° hygiene management system that ensures not just access to sanitary pads, but also safe disposal in an environmentally responsible manner.
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