Ditch the disposables

At the risk of being indisputably indiscreet, I think the time has come to talk about disposables.  Now, I know the diaper debate rages on with the green folks saying you really can't win with the water and energy use in cloth diapers stacking up pretty comparably to the carbon footprint of disposables.  Parents everywhere now have the best of both worlds with g-diapers, flushable, compostable diaper liners with cloth covers.  Well yay for them.  But us fertile folks of the world are still under the thumb of the playtex, tampax, always, and kotex empires.  Bleached cottons, synthetic fibers, non-biodegrable plastics, tons of waste, and ridiculously high costs are just not ok anymore!

About eight years ago I made the leap from disposables to reusables.  I started small, with gladrags, then made what was for a starving student a big investment in the keeper.  Latex turns out not to be a great friend of mine after a couple days, so about five years ago I upgraded to the diva cup in spite of its cringe-inducing name.  

A couple of weeks ago I was caught unprepared at work: my trusty diva cup was at home.  I went to a convenience store to purchase the smallest box of tampons I could find - $4 for 8 of these toxic wads of cotton?!  I was tempted to get in my car and drive home to avoid the fiasco but time didn't permit.  Upon my return to the office I was cursing the overpriced little box and my colleagues asked what my superior alternative was.  Well... what a discussion ensued!  

I guess I just assumed that lots of folks got sick of paying through the nose for organic cotton tampons, and had done as I did and bought something they could use for years.  Much to my surprise and chagrin, it seems that not only do my beloved colleagues and friends  not splurge on organics for their most delicate parts, but they certainly don't invest in reusables.

The alternatives to store brand feminine products have changed my life, they make my period an after thought at most, and never an inconvenience.  Gone are the days of stuffing suitcases with bulky products, scrounging at the bottom of a purse for an intact and sterile product, and frequent restocking.  The products of choice for me, for the last five years at least, are a giant box of kotex light days ($4, lasts at least 18 months), and a diva cup (about $35 bucks although I saw them at the coop for $25 today, and last up to ten YEARS!).  Upon my tampon fiasco though, I realized I could do better and don't need to buy disposable light days either.  So yes, in went an order to lunapads after copious online research.  

Here's what I found:

The diva cup vs. the keeper: very comparable in cost ($35 ish).  The diva cup is silicone, the keeper comes in latex or silicone.  Very similar designs, but the keeper has a longer tab that can poke you, so you are supposed to trim it.  I find that trimming gives you a rough edge, which can be uncomfortable.  The diva cup has a short tab with a rounded edge from the molding, I prefer it.  So, what is it?  It's a cup you where internally, like a rounded cone, made of medical grade silicone.  Unlike instead cups, this stays put and is much easier to get securely in place.  It holds an ounce of fluid, which means you'll almost never fill it in 12 hours even though it needs to be removed and cleaned that often.  It is a god-send, it has saved me hundreds of dollars, tons of bio hazard and toxic waste, and stress!  BTW- we all know that bleach toxins can lead to infertility and cancer, right?  So why is it ok to use them internally?  It isn't! The FDA has said that the exposure from using bleached coffee filters leads to an unacceptable level of carcinogens. Just imagine what the exposure is from tampons.  No thank you!

Lunapads/gladrags/etc: there are countless versions out there but they pretty much all work the same way (not terribly different to cloth diapers with covers, but thankfully, far less cumbersome).  You get a pad and a liner: the pad is  a cloth holder with velcro or snaps on the wings to fasten around your underpants, and the liner sits in the holder, tucking in under little straps or sitting inside pockets, depending on the design.  You remove the inserts when they are saturated, soak them, then throw them in the washing machine with your laundry (they don't stain other items because they've been soaked, removing most of the liquid).  They even make underpants that go with the liners, and they come in fun fabrics.  

If you ask me, having a happy period is not about which super-market brand you buy, it's about being able to forget about it completely.  I hope that little blue box is the last one I ever have to buy!