I'm Stephanie Safarian and this is episode 118.

You are listening to the Sustainable Minimalist Podcast, a show about living simply and

sustainably with your family. Here's your host, Stephanie Safarian.

Hello there friends and welcome back.

On today's show, we are discussing all things eco-friendly menstruation.

I know, are you excited?

I sure am super excited to talk about something, anything other than coronavirus and I hope you are too. The

average woman uses 22 disposable menstrual products like tampampons and pads every cycle, so every month.

That adds up to 264 products a year and assuming that an average woman menstruates for 35 years, she will have thrown

away 9,240 single-use menstrual products in the trash in her lifetime.

Now that's crazy, right? 9,240 products in a lifetime. It should be no surprise to any of you listening that

plastic applicators and pads wrapped in plastic and tampons made from and

pads wrapped in plastic and tampons made from conventional cotton.

They're not recyclable and they are certainly not eco-friendly, right?

They don't break down in landfills either. So that number, 9,240 pieces of

trash per woman per lifetime, that number is so jaw dropping precisely because it is entirely preventable. It is estimated

that close to 20 billion menstrual products end up in landfills each year just in the United States alone

so really let that number sink in 20 billion menstrual products in landfills every

single year that's's crazy. On today's show we are

attempting to do two things. The first thing in part one is I am outlining six reusable menstrual product options that are on the market right now.

I'm betting that even if you know two or three of them there's going to be at least one

option that I suggest to you today that is going to surprise you. In part two of

...