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Blame shame, convenience or ignorance, but studies show anywhere from half
to more than two-thirds of women flush their tampons down the toilet.

Considering the average woman uses around 10,000 tampons in a lifetime,
that’s a lot of period products landing in sewer systems.

Plumbers and wastewater experts have long cautioned against flushing
anything but toilet paper, since other materials can cause clogs and lead
to pricey repairs. Now, with growing awareness about the chemicals and microplastics found in many period products, environment and marine life advocates are adding their voices to a chorus asking folks to ditch the flushing habit.

“The concern for our aquarium is we want to make sure that people are
aware that this is sort of a new reality we have to deal with,” said
Marissa Wu, programs and operations director for the Roundhouse Aquarium
in Manhattan Beach. Wu has made it a personal mission to educate people
about the risks and alternatives to flushing period products.

Wu has been at Roundhouse Aquarium since 2016, helping to further the free site’s mission to highlight marine life native to Southern California
waters, from sharks to shrimps. The aquarium recently added a display
about pollution and how long it takes different materials to biodegrade in
the sea. Wu said they’ve been trying to inform visitors how to cut down on waste and single-use products that too often end up in the ocean, an
effort that has led her to start researching risks and alternatives to traditional tampons and pads.

Tampons must go through a review with the Food and Drug Administration
before they can be sold in the United States, and experts generally
consider those products safe if used as directed. But Wu pointed out that manufacturers aren’t required to list the ingredients of period products,
or test results for things like chemicals and microplastics, on their packaging.

“So we’re basically putting something in a very sensitive part of our
bodies that we don’t know much about,” she said.

Independent tests have found microplastics not only in wrappers and tampon applicators, but also in some tampon strings and in the tampons and pads themselves. The products otherwise are largely cotton, which is among the
crops most heavily treated with pesticides. Some products also have been
shown to have other chemicals, compounds and synthetic materials added to
mask odors, boost absorbency and increase durability.

Such findings raised concerns for Wu in terms of personal health. And as a marine life expert, she also started to think about what happens when
those materials end up in our sewer systems.

Anything flushed down the toilet can end up in oceans and other bodies of
water in several ways. If sewers overflow or leak, as happens far too
often, those materials end up contaminating local waters. Products like
tampons also can hit screens in wastewater systems and sit there for a
long time, leaching out whatever is inside of them until they’re cleared
out and thrown in landfills. And some sewer systems have grinders to break
down such material, which can create pieces of plastic small enough that
they make it into the treated wastewater streams that many Southern
California plants release into the ocean.

Once there, Wu said, “They take around 500 to 800 years to break down. …
And that’s just an estimation. We don’t fully know entirely how long it’s
going to take because some of the first plastics that were made are still
out there, right? They still exist. So we haven’t lived long enough to
have a true estimate of how long it’s going to take.”

The plastics do get smaller and smaller, she noted, with microplastics considered anything less than five millimeters. That debris can get inside algae or plankton, Wu explained. Then fish feed on that plankton, and
humans feed on the fish. So yes, bits of those flushed products might eventually end up inside of us.

“And the plastics don’t break down or get passed through the systems,” Wu
said. “They just stay there.”

Wu also is worried about how pesticides or other chemicals in period
products might affect marine life.

“I had a friend in grad school who was studying at the shark lab over at
Cal State Long Beach. She was looking at sting rays and whether toxins
that were ingested by the mother were passed on to the pups before being
born, through the bloodstream and placenta. So she was majorly concerned
as well about feminine products ending up in the ocean.”

The good news, Wu said, is that there are alternatives.

The most basic thing people can do, she said, is to stop flushing any
period products down the toilet and, instead, wrap them in toilet paper
and deposit them in waste baskets. There’s been progress in making that
option more convenient, she noted, with most public facilities now
offering lined bins in each stall for safe disposal.

Next, Wu recommends women either consider reusable products, such as
period panties or menstrual cups, or look for single-use products that are organic cotton and don’t contain plastics.

“I would encourage women to learn more about the products and learn to
trust a brand,” she said.

“It’s a very personal decision, so I encourage people to treat it that way
and treat yourselves with respect to make sure that you’re aware of what
brands you’re using and what they put in those products. Because, on the
one hand, it does affect you. But at the same time it can also help the environment if we’re more conscious about it.”

Unfortunately, reusable and organic products tend to cost substantially
more than traditional period products. With reusables, Wu pointed out it’s
an upfront investment that can save money over time, like buying a
reusable water bottle. But with single-use products, the cost can be twice
as high.

That’s why Wu is not currently in favor of any sort of government
regulation on the materials used in period products, realizing it might
price some lower-income women out of the market. But she would like to see companies list ingredients and test results on packaging, so consumers can
at least make more informed decisions.

Then, she said, “For menstruators who can afford to be more conscientious
about the environment, and more conscientious about what what is put into
their feminine products, make sure they go with the brands that they trust
and brands that they agree with, as far as what kind of materials they’re
using and putting up against their skin in those very sensitive areas.”

Wu would also like to see more people pressure companies to ditch plastics
and other potential pollutants voluntarily, for the good of their
consumers and the planet.

‘If enough of us raise our hands ask companies to make things a little bit better,” she said, “maybe they will.”

<https://www.ocregister.com/2023/03/31/aquarium-director-for-ocean-health- stop-flushing-period-products/>

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