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" We&amp;#039;re well-versed in the issue of tampon tax. Those essential sanitary products we have to buy month in, month out, are viewed as a luxury item by our government. Cheers, you guys. But at least we earn the same as our male counterparts so that the extra expense doesn&amp;#039;t make too\u00A0much of a difference. Oh, wait... But there&amp;#039;s another period-related issue that doesn&amp;#039;t receive quite\u00A0so much limelight, and we can&amp;#039;t help but feel like it&amp;#039;s important. How sustainable are the sanitary products we know, trust, and use month-in, month-out, when it comes to an environmental point of view? And are they damaging our health over a prolonged, er,\u00A0period of time? If you think about the fact that\u00A0women use somewhere between 11,000 and 17,000 tampons in\u00A0a lifetime, and then think about the number of period-having women there are in the world,\u00A0that&amp;#039;s a\u00A0lot\u00A0of tampons. Which each take roughly six months to biodegrade.\u00A0 Pads, meanwhile, tend to be made from\u00A0synthetic materials like\u00A0polypropylene, as well as\u00A0super-absorbent\u00A0materials\u00A0made\u00A0from\u00A0petrochemicals,\u00A0meaning\u00A0they&amp;#039;re\u00A0not\u00A0actually\u00A0biodegradable.\u00A0And apparently, one standard\u00A0pack of\u00A0sanitary pads uses\u00A0the same amount of plastic as four carrier bags. Which isn&amp;#039;t ideal, when we know how bad plastic bags can be for the environment. And health-wise, the ins and out of it aren&amp;#039;t looking too good, either.\u00A0Most\u00A0tampons are made from Rayon, which is created from wood pulp. It&amp;#039;s then bleached to make it absorbent, which\u00A0creates dioxins. Tampons are well-known to shed and, given that the lining of the vagina is one of the most absorbent parts of the human \u00A0body, this can have detrimental repercussions for our health.\u00A0 Dioxins, for example, have been known disrupt hormone function according to research, and have\u00A0also been linked to immune system suppression and reproductive issues. Again, not ideal.\u00A0  We buy organic fruit and veg, but after learning all\u00A0that\u00A0stuff,\u00A0we were starting to wonder whether\u00A0we should\u00A0devote the same level of concern\u00A0for health and environmental issues\u00A0to our period-related purchases, too.\u00A0 So when a company called TOTM (stands for Time Of The Month, just fyi, it took me a good few days to work that one out) got in touch asking if we&amp;#039;d like to road test their organic tampons, we thought we&amp;#039;d see what all the fuss was about. Do we really need\u00A0organic tampons, or is this just another example of the world going mad? Will we have to start ditching our shoes,\u00A0wearing skirts weaved out of hemp and dread-locking our hair if we convert\u00A0to\u00A0organic sanitary products? Well, no, it turns out. Because they&amp;#039;re exactly like any other sanitary product you&amp;#039;ll ever have used. The\u00A0pads look the same (except minus that sickly sweet &amp;#039;floral&amp;#039; smell that emerges from most) and the tampons are the same in shape and size as the ones we&amp;#039;re well acquainted with. They&amp;#039;re just made from 100% hypoallergenic cotton, with no synthetic stuff.\u00A0So why aren&amp;#039;t we\u00A0all\u00A0using them? With stories about Toxic Shock Syndrome caused by tampons occurring all-too-frequently, perhaps it&amp;#039;s time for us to start thinking about what we&amp;#039;re really putting inside our bodies. This isn&amp;#039;t to say that any of the mainstream period product brands we know and use are &amp;#039;unsafe&amp;#039; - they would have to pass rigorous tests to ensure they weren&amp;#039;t endangering anyone who used them.\u00A0 But it&amp;#039;s about thinking about how we can do the best by our bodies, and if not exposing them to potential risks from synthetic materials, when there&amp;#039;s a perfectly good (and reasonably priced) alternative option out there, is one way of doing that, then\u00A0I know what I&amp;#039;m going to use from now on. Follow Cat on Twitter.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.co.uk/body/health/news/a41489/organic-tampons-environmental-healthy/>