Pads can create over 3 million tonnes of microplastics, so it is important to find a sustainable alternative. Fluus’s patented technology, Flushtec, uses cellulose plant fibers and allows the pad to fully break down in the water.

For women and girls living in poverty, reusable pads provide a lifeline to manage their periods with dignity.

Absorbency

Girls in low-income countries cannot access reliable, affordable sanitary products, forcing them to use unhygienic old rags that are both dangerous and uncomfortable. This leads to illnesses, school absenteeism, and pungent social injustice.

A team from Imperial has invented a completely biodegradable, flushable menstrual pad that could be thrown away with your everyday waste – instead of piling up in landfills and polluting our oceans. They’ve created a top sheet and button sheet from plant fibers that won’t block drains, an absorbent core made of bamboo wadding, and a waterproof bottom layer.

The sanitary pads are also fully compostable, and the packaging and peel papers are all 100% flushable too. They’re currently supplying the pads to Cordaid’s network of women entrepreneurs who go door-to-door in Bangladesh, selling them alongside other vital products like food and nutritional supplements, primary health items, contraceptives, and prepaid phone cards. The aim is to eradicate period poverty in the char villages and displaced communities that they serve.

Hygiene

Traditional pads contain chemicals such as dioxins, which are created in the bleaching process and can cause hormone issues, reproductive problems, and even cancer. Reusable pads are made from organic cotton and will not expose women to these harmful chemicals.

These flushable sanitary pads have a low, one-off cost (or for charity packs, are free) and will last up to 10 years before they need replacing. This can be a game-changer for poorer communities, where disposable pads are often impossible to access due to high prices and ongoing costs.

The brand’s marketing and communication work centers around the fact that Fluus is fully flushable, something people don’t realise about other sanitary towels – which are popped down toilets indiscriminately, polluting drains, clogging up waterways and contributing to global plastic waste. The identity and packaging work by Mother Design reflects this point of difference, highlighting the pad’s USP as “a sustainable alternative to disposable menstrual products”.

Biodegradability

For many girls and women, especially in developing countries, access to affordable sanitary products is a matter of life or death. Period poverty robs them of education and other opportunities, so reusable pads are a real lifeline that let them do well at school and work.

But despite the popularity of reusables, they still require a lot of care and attention, making them difficult to use in cramped public toilets. Plus, they can be prone to leaks and are often dirty or uncomfortable to wear.

So designer Olivia Ahn set about designing a fully flushable pad with her engineering partner Aaron Koshy, and three years later the Fluus pads are here. Designed to be as high-performing as a traditional sanitary pad, they have been independently tested for flushability and biodegradability. The patent-pending design features a super-soft topsheet made from plant fibres and an absorbent core of 3mm cellulose. The pad breaks apart as it enters the water system and is treated like toilet paper in waste treatment plants.

Disposability

The team at WithLula have developed a new sanitary pad that is fully flushable, meaning you can simply toss it away without worrying about what happens to it afterwards. The pad consists of a non-woven fabric cover, an absorbent core of bamboo wadding, and a water-repellent layer.

This is important because around 12 billion pads and 7 billion tampons are used globally every year, most of which end up in landfill or wrongly flushed down toilets. Using an eco-friendly reusable pad will cut this waste by more than half and also helps to reduce the harmful microplastics that are created from conventional period products.

The Fluus sanitary pad consists of “a soft, whisper-quiet cotton and fleece top sheet with a patent-pending bamboo fibre absorbent core”, which “slips apart in the water to break down into cellulose plant fibres that are half the size of an eyelash.” This means the sanitary pad will break down in sewers within days not centuries.