Thrift Week 2019, Day 5: Lady stuff

Warning to male readers: If you're at all squeamish about menstruation, you might not want to read today's entry. I'm going to be talking about periods, feminine products, the waste they produce, and how to avoid it—and while I will try not to get too explicit, I won't be able to steer clear of the lady parts altogether.

[Pause]

Okay, now that we've cleared all the fragile males out of the room, let's talk seriously for a minute about the cost of the average monthly period, and the waste associated with it. I did a little research on this for an as-yet-unpublished article on Money Crashers, and I found a piece in the Washington Post about a California assemblywoman named Cristina Garcia pushing to make feminine hygiene products tax-free across the state. Her office did some research and found that the average woman in California spent $7 a month on disposable sanitary pads and tampons. Multiply that by 40 years of fertility, and it adds up to $3,360 we're doling out to Aunt Flo.

And that doesn't even touch on the environmental costs. All those pads and tampons are ending up in landfills (except in the few areas where trash is incinerated), along with the individual wrappers and boxes they're packaged in. Let's start by assuming that $7 a month figure works out to one box of pads per month (which is about the price I found for a box of U by Kotex at Target). A three-pack of this same brand on Amazon has a shipping weight of 2.3 pounds, so if we round down to allow for the weight of the shipping envelope, that works out to to about 12 ounces per box. So over the course of your fertile years, that adds up to 360 pounds of waste going into the landfill.

Now, more power to Assemblywoman Garcia for trying to get the tax removed on these products, but I might quibble with her argument that they're a "basic necessity." Because most of the time, at least, you don't really need disposable products to cope with your period. Our great-grandmothers managed with reusable cloth rags, and there's no reason we can't do the same.

Matter of fact, it's easier for us, because there are now reusable cloth pads specifically designed for the purpose. I bought my first set of cotton Glad Rags nearly 25 years ago, and while they've finally started to show signs of wear, they're still usable. The assortment you see here—six cloth pads, each with one or two liners—is all I need to get through my period every month. I just change out the pad each day—twice if it's a heavy day—and soak it in the sink before tossing it into the wash. They get laundered and go up on the line with all my regular clothes (probably to the consternation of the neighbors, if they've ever noticed).

These six pads, plus the carrying bag, cost me somewhere around $50. The amount they add to each month's laundry probably works out to maybe one extra load of laundry per year at most, for an annual maintenance cost of 40 cents. So over the past 25 years, these pads have cost me maybe $60 to own and have taken the place of over a thousand dollars' worth of disposable sanitary napkins. (Well, maybe I should say they've almost taken the place of disposable pads, since I still keep a few on hand. They're easier to use when traveling or to store in my purse for emergencies. But I haven't actually bought any in years.)

Now, I realize some ladies probably have to deal with heavier flow than I do, so they'd need a larger assortment of cloth pads to get through the month. But these women have all the more reason to choose cloth over paper; since they're spending more each month now, they stand to save more. Double the initial investment and laundry costs, and you're looking at $120 for 25 years' worth of protection, as opposed to over $2,000 for disposable pads. (Actually, if you were to buy new Glad Rags today, the cost would be a little more than that. Their sampler kit of three day pads, three liners, an overnight pad, and a carry bag costs $95, and a woman with heavy periods would probably need two of them. But other brands are much cheaper, such as these Teamoy cloth pads that costs only $26 for ten pads of varying sizes, plus a "wet bag" for stowing away soiled pads in case you have to change pads while you're at work. The clean ones can simply be folded in on themselves for carrying—no bag needed.)

Cloth pads, like the disposable kind, can't be worn while swimming. This isn't really an issue for me; I just have a box of disposable tampons for those extremely rare occasions when I want to go swimming during my period. (I've had the same box for ages, and there's basically no chance I'll use it up before I hit menopause.) But for women who want to be able to swim at any time, there's also a reusable tampon alternative: the menstrual cup. You can wear one of these for up to 12 hours, then wash it and reinsert it. At the end of your cycle, clean it thoroughly and put it away until next month.

The best-known of these is the DivaCup, which is made of silicone. It's not as cost-effective as cloth pads, since it costs around $40 and only lasts about a year, but it's still less than half the price of disposable pads. A latex cup, such as The Keeper, can last up to 10 years, potentially replacing $840 worth of pads for $35.

Bottom line: between cloth pads and menstrual cups, there's no reason for any woman to keep forking over $7 a month to the giant companies that control the feminine product business. Women of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but 360 pounds of garbage!