Sustainable menstrual management remains a real challenge in India. For a greener tomorrow, we must work towards adopting non-polluting measures of sanitation and begin viewing menstruation through a holistic lens.
Over the last six months, my time with The Project Amara has shown me that the topic of menstruation takes a backseat in India. Apart from taking the limelight in brief coming-of-age rituals and high school syllabi, it is largely brushed under the carpet and is victim to multiple stereotypes.
Indeed, menstruators themselves are uncomfortable about discussions on the subject and even feel ashamed for having to go through it. The environmental result: 125 kilograms of non-biodegradable sanitation waste going unnoticed per menstruator. The situation gets much worse when we consider its nationwide impact, with over 121 million individuals using disposable pads in India. Given this, generating awareness about menstruation no longer remains a choice, but a socio-environmental urgency in need of immediate remediation.
The root of this ignorance, to begin with, lies in the way menstruation is conceived in India. Much of the discourse around menstruation is constrained to its biological origins and social implications. The topic is briefly examined in high school biology textbooks and forms the core of many coming of age rituals, religious or otherwise.
This means that while the average Indian schoolchild has an understanding about menstruation from scholastic and societal viewpoints, they know, and by extension, care little about its real-world implications. At this point, I want to emphasize that in no way do I wish to undermine the importance of such education. On the contrary, I wholeheartedly acknowledge that such knowledge dissemination is vital to generate basic awareness about menstruation at a time when many are beginning to undergo and/or witness this confusing process for the first time.
However, it is also important to highlight that this purely academic and community-centric approach towards the subject of menstruation often overlooks, if not disregards, its relationship with the environment. Expectedly, this is highly problematic and has a number of adverse implications for India’s ecological well-being. This becomes evident if one considers that India produces over 12 billion non-biodegradable pads annually. Many of them are heavily plastic-based and can take up to 800 years to decompose.
But that’s not all. In India, sanitary waste disposal faces an additional challenge: the manner and place in which it occurs. Attempts to understand either process do not, at present, yield pleasant results. A sizable proportion of India’s menstruating population resorts to discarding used menstrual products in open fields and rivers; still more opt for throwing/flushing it away as part of the routine waste.
Not only does this compromise the health of various water bodies, but this also exposes sanitation workers, who rather heroically, take up the task of regularly segregating such sewage to a variety of deadly diseases. Consequently, by prioritizing human need over ecological concern, we have paved the way for not just extensive environmental degradation, but health hazards as well. We need to recognize this quickly and work towards making menstruation sustainable in India.
The Road Ahead
A lot can be done in this regard. At the individual level, we can start by abandoning the notion that the issue of menstruation is restricted to menstruators alone. This is true only from a biological point of view and excludes the variety of socio-emotional, economic and environmental implications that the process brings along with it – both for menstruators and non-menstruators.
A good example of this is found in the prevalence of period-related stereotypes in India. The period stain remains a source of shame in the nation not just because it is baselessly looked down upon by many non-menstruators, but also because menstruators themselves internalize such critical world-views. Hence, the pervasiveness of negative and often untrue ideas about menstruation in India can be attributed directly to their continued acceptance by its society as a whole.
By the same logic, sustainable menstruation can be reinforced throughout the country only once it becomes the collective aspiration of both menstruators and non-menstruators within it. We must remember that the harmful consequences of polluting sanitation products are not limited to those who use them; they affect us all adversely. As such, each one of us needs to rally for greener alternatives and demand proper disposal. To what extent and for how long is secondary.
I believe that this change can be driven by India’s youth. While facts like the ones given above may make it seem that adopting sustainable methods of menstrual hygiene is an obvious choice, many continue to be sceptical about leaving behind techniques that they have used to maintain hygiene for years. The youth, as torch-bearers of the next generation, must take up the responsibility of showing such individuals that their efforts to this end are necessary and for a good reason.
One way in which this can be achieved is through the formation of organizations dedicated specifically to raise awareness about menstruation amongst multiple age groups and genders across socio-economic backgrounds. Through these, informed young adults can, along with other concerned individuals, facilitate inter-community dialogue and launch information campaigns to lift stereotypes surrounding periods and their related sanitation.
Such interventions, moreover, acquire a heightened significance in many of India’s villages and economically weaker sections of society where prejudices about menstruation and menstrual products remain rampant. There is a pressing need for them to be sensitively, but swiftly broken down, and I can personally attest to the importance of youth-led groups in this process.
Furthermore, the government can endorse endeavours like these by showing a greater interest in promoting sustainability alongside menstrual hygiene. To do so, it can begin by subsidizing sustainable menstrual products and creating policies that support their usage. Many of these appear to be more expensive than their conventional variants at first glance but are actually cheaper to maintain in the long run owing to their repeated usability.
Waste disposal laws should also be appropriately modified to ensure that menstrual waste is properly disposed of in the country, and heavier penalties are levied on those that go deliberately against them. Finally, and above all else, the government must encourage the public questioning and constructive dismissal of myths surrounding menstruation whilst actively engaging making citizens aware of how its management can become environmentally sound. This will go a long way in removing the social stigma around the subject, and catalyze the eco-friendly transition India so desperately needs.
The environmental impacts of menstruation in India need to be urgently attended to. Due to menstruation being a taboo in many parts of the county, various aspects relating to it, including that the majority of our sanitary waste is non-biodegradable, are sidelined. Moving forward, we must resolve to break these societal barriers both for the sake of our menstruators and our planet.