Producing Sanitary Pads from Knitwear Waste in Bangladesh
- PDF / 439,746 Bytes
- 5 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 41 Downloads / 145 Views
ORIGINAL PAPER
Producing Sanitary Pads from Knitwear Waste in Bangladesh Mohsin Uddin 1
&
Shariful Islam Tushar 1 & Sadman Sakib 2
Received: 6 July 2020 / Revised: 22 August 2020 / Accepted: 25 August 2020 # Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020
Abstract At present, not only Bangladesh but also the entire world is so conscious about women’s health and environmental protection. In our country, a large number of women, especially those from low socio-economic groups, do not use sanitary napkins since the available pads in the market are costly. They make use of old rags instead which are not comfortable or hygienic, leading to illnesses which constantly cause absence from work. On the contrary, export income of Bangladesh heavily depends on its textile industry which produces almost 500,000 tons of clothing waste annually. Moreover, clothes are generally thrown away after use. Both these incidents cause serious problems to the environment. For instance, waste clothes take plenty of time to mix with soil, causing landfill problems. Besides, some people burn these thrown away clothing materials in order to reduce solid waste, which instead causes carbon emission. Burning these wastes is not a solution. To solve these problems we have made sanitary pads from recycled cotton collected from waste clothes and thrown away clothing materials, particularly the knitwear which are more sustainable, lightweight, and affordable. Keywords Menstrual hygiene . Textile waste management . Recycled cotton . Sanitary pad
Introduction Over the years, in developing countries like Bangladesh, limited attention has been paid to the role of menstrual hygiene. However, the effects of this ignorance on the quality of living are substantial. During the estimated 32 reproductive years is staggering, assuming 13 menstrual cycles in a given year, with a requirement of 11 napkins per cycle, the average woman requires 4500 napkins throughout her lifetime (Vostral 2008). A review reported that adolescent girls in low- and middle-income countries are often neither informed nor prepared for menarche. Exclusion and shame lead to misconceptions and unhygienic practices during menstruation. The girls tend to miss school and refrain themselves from social interaction. Even the relatives and the teachers are often not prepared to respond to the needs of girls (Chandra-Mouli and Patel 2020). A study that took place in West Bengal, India,
* Mohsin Uddin [email protected] 1
Apparel Engineering, Bangladesh University of Textiles, Tejgaon, Dhaka, Bangladesh
2
Industrial Production & Engineering, Bangladesh University of Textiles, Tejgaon, Dhaka, Bangladesh
found out that only 11.25% of girls used sanitary pads during menstruation (Dasgupta and Sarkar 2008). In Bangladesh, monthly periods are secret and shameful things, especially in the rural part of the country. Women living there bury their old menstrual clothes (or rags) to the ground for the fear of evil spirits getting attracted to the blood. In 2014, only 14% of women used sanitary pads whi
Data Loading...
