Intimate hygiene products, such as sanitary towels and tampons, are essential during the menstrual period. However, these are usually made with highly polluting plastic materials, as they are not usually biodegradable.
It is estimated that a woman can use between eight thousand and 17 thousand tampons throughout her life, depending on the age at which she began to menstruate, the constancy and duration of her menstrual cycles or if she has any type of illness such as menorrhagia or endometriosis. In addition, it is estimated that approximately 100 billion period care products are discarded worldwide each year.
Trying to solve this problem, a couple from India have just launched a brand of ecological feminine pads made from banana waste. In this way they help women to have adequate intimate hygiene and, at the same time, take care of the environment.
Hetal and Chirag Virani worked together to develop a feminine pad that was friendly to the environment and, at the same time, met the necessary requirements to maintain good intimate hygiene. After several attempts, they brought the Sparkle sanitary napkin to the market, capable of biodegrading in approximately six months. But that’s not all, because the product’s packaging is also 100 percent biodegradable.
The idea came about after the couple realized that banana waste on the farms used to be burned, dumped, crushed and wasted, even though the banana fibers are still strong enough to be used in other items.
My family has banana plantations near one of the largest banana growing belts in India. Banana plants grow rapidly in just 9 to 12 months. Once bananas are harvested, these plants become agricultural waste. We found that banana fibers are naturally superabsorbent and highly effective in blocking menstrual flow.
Another of the reasons that led the couple to create a feminine pad, and not another product, was that they knew the problems faced by millions of girls and women due to the lack of access to sanitary pads, since these are usually very expensive in the market. and not all the population could afford them.
Now that they produce their own pads, they often donate them in various regions of India. However, they hope that their product can have a greater reach and reach various parts of the world, since in the market it would cost up to 50 percent below those that already exist on the supermarket shelves.
Sparkle products do not contain plastics, perfumes or chlorine. They are made with banana fiber, bamboo fiber and corn starch.
- Bamboo fiber: Naturally antibacterial, soft and hypoallergenic
- Banana fiber: Incredibly absorbent. Extracted from agricultural residues and supports the circular economy
- Corn: Alternative to leak-proof eco-friendly plastic
Sparkle only takes six months to biodegrade, while conventional sanitary napkins can take up to 400 years to disappear from the planet. Until now, those who have had the opportunity to use Sparkle assure that it is a friendly product with the female body, it does not cause itching, sweating or irritation, its absorption is good and it is quite cheap.