Menstrual Hygiene and Disposal of Sanitary Waste

Good menstrual hygiene is described as vital for health, well-being, dignity, empowerment and productivity — poor hygiene is linked to raised stress, fear and embarrassment during periods, which can keep girls inactive and contribute directly to school absenteeism. Recommended practice is to use clean, safe absorbent materials — cloth, sanitary napkins, pads, tampons or menstrual cups — and to change them roughly every 4-5 hours as needed, which keeps a woman comfortable, clean and protected from infection. How the used material is disposed of matters just as much: it should be wrapped in paper and thrown away properly, never flushed down a toilet or drain, since flushed napkins choke drainage lines and end up causing water pollution; the recommended, eco-friendly method is to destroy sanitary waste using incinerators, and schools, colleges and public facilities are increasingly being fitted with incinerators and napkin-vending machines for exactly this reason. A well-known real-world example of tackling this problem is Arunachalam Muruganantham, a Tamil Nadu-based inventor who, after seeing the unsafe materials women around him (including his own wife) resorted to during menstruation, spent y …