Just padding is not enough!

Since the Bollywood star Akshay Kumar has started promoting his upcoming movie ‘Pad Man‘, the beautiful ladies and even the men are posting pics with sanitary napkins, in order to raise the awareness regarding the menstrual hygiene. ‘That’s good, but is it enough?,’ asks the angel therapy practitioner Himaanshu Shuklaa.

“Today, I was exchanging pleasantries with a waste picker aunty from our society, while she was segregating the garbage. The smile on her face suddenly vanished after by mistake she touched a blood soaked sanitary pad. She faked her smile in order to hide the anger and told me, ‘we are used to it, as it happens very often.’ It was disgusting,”

says Himaanshu.

He further added,

“I remember, in one of my previous organizations the ladies toilet used to choke because a few of educated-yet-illiterate ladies regularly flush the used pads.”

When the waste pickers separate out soiled napkins from recyclable items by hand, they are exposed to micro-organisms like salmonella, staphylococcus, pathogens (that cause hepatitis and tetanus) and even the deadly HIV.

Also, the non-biodegradable plastic used in sanitary napkins is not only harmful for health, but also has negative consequences on the environment. FYI an average woman living in urban areas throws away about more than one-and-a-half ton of sanitary napkins, tampons etc.

Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein actress Dia Mirza, recently made quite a few surprising revelations. The former Miss Aisa Pacific said,

“The sanitary napkins and diapers in our country are polluting the environment on a larger scale and that’s why during periods I have stopped using sanitary napkins. Now I use biodegradable napkins that get destroyed 100 percent naturally. In our country, women are using cotton during periods for a long time, but now many options have come that are bad for the environment. The women in India should stop using sanitary napkins and should use protective and secured biodegradable napkins.”

“The idea to encourage women to use the sanitary napkins should be appreciated, but aren’t we also supposed to convey how to dispose them? We should promote the usage of biodegradable pads and dispose them in a clean and discreet way,”

Himaanshu suggested.

Hope Akshay Kumar and his better half is listening.