The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26260978

by debugunit • 12 years ago

835 261 12 years ago

bbc.co.uk

visakanv2• 12 years ago

What a classic Hero's Journey story- man encounters difficulty experienced by his loved one, tries to solve her problem efficiently, loses her in the process, becomes an outcast, persists, finds meaning in his work, receives help, is humble, helps people at an epic scale, reunites with his wife, happy ending, better world, triumph over ignorance and hardship.

shiven• 12 years ago

You may also find this real-life story inspiring ...

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashrath_Manjhi

One man's epic struggle against the landscape, to not let others suffer as he did.

gknoy• 12 years ago

That was amazing. Thank you for sharing that.

tamersalama• 12 years ago

OT: I liked how the article was written.

NathanOsullivan• 12 years ago

So after all that he managed to lower the price from £0.04 to £0.025 ... is that a meaningful reduction?

primitivesuave2• 12 years ago

Now it's creating employment for women within the villages and being sold for a lower price, while it previously was being mass produced by machinery and sold at a much higher profit margin.

You're right though, to the end consumer it's not that meaningful of a reduction, especially since it is an expense that is only incurred once a month.

arjn3• 12 years ago

For a poor family in India (and there are many), the short answer is "yes".

For a longer answer you may want to consider the personal and social hurdles he had to overcome and that not all gains are measured in money.

lostlogin3• 12 years ago

To add to your answer, the article mentioned his mother on $1 per day with 4 kids. I suspect any reduction in price matters.

qwerta2• 12 years ago

women's self-help groups

Community wide DIY. So yes it makes sense.

lnanek2• 12 years ago

Well and people are making them locally in their villages and colleges instead of buying international, and mostly women at that. I know American cities that are always struggling to keep mom and pop shops alive vs. the big boxes. Meanwhile everyone says Japan's only hope to keep their labor pool growing against their greying population is to start getting women involved. So he pulled off something America and Japan are struggling with.

thaumasiotes5• 12 years ago

Meanwhile everyone says Japan's only hope to keep their labor pool growing against their greying population is to start getting women involved.

I was under the impression that as women join the workforce their fertility plummets. This seems incredibly counterproductive if the problem is a "greying population"?

pja2• 12 years ago

I wonder if that was 4 rupees in 1998, vs 2.5 rupees now? According to an online inflation calculator, 1 rupee in 1998 is worth 4 rupees now, so the difference would be more like 16:2.5.

Perhaps someone could check an online Indian Amazon equivalent, not that such a place would be available to rural women anyway, but it would give a lower baseline.

nknighthb• 12 years ago

Plus reduction in medical problems and mortality and an increase in productivity.

I'm also not clear to what extent the mass-produced pads were actually available. He seems to have started out in a populated area with several villages and a significant town nearby. In more rural areas, was there even someplace you realistically could buy them?

quarterwave• 12 years ago

Branded pads retail range Rupees 10-25 per pad - some variation in capacity. So the contemporary ratio ranges from 4:1 to 10:1. So 16:2.5 is good estimate even for contemporary comparison!

@pja you are hereby awarded 1 Fermi (see recent link on the topic of Fermi estimates).

The saving is significant because one can also buy shampoo in sachets that cost Rs.5, so the savings expand access to a range of basic hygiene products.

logfromblammo3• 12 years ago

He is also increasing the local velocity of money. That 2.5 rupees is re-spent locally, aside from the cost of imported cellulose boards. 4 rupees spent on an import would exit, aside from the shopkeeper markup, and would not return, except as payment for exports.

The velocity of money effectively increases the availability of money. It isn't so much how many coins you have, but how often each one gets spent. If you buy from someone who hires and spends locally, that money is more likely to come back around to you faster than if you buy from someone who spends or saves it somewhere else. And that distance isn't just as the crow flies, but also psychological distance. Thus, as a software writer, I should prefer to buy from companies that spend a lot on software, even if they don't ever pay me directly. It makes more sense for me to shop at Amazon or Wal*Mart than somewhere that figures the sales excise with a desk calculator, and better for me to patronize such a business in my own town than one just like it 500 miles away.

So it's not an apples-to-apples comparison, exactly. But trying to adjust the numbers to gauge the true economic impact of this invention would take about 3 more economists than I currently keep in my back pocket.

PhasmaFelis2• 12 years ago

I understand the difference is considerably larger taking inflation into account (the first price was more than 10 years ago). But more than that, he's opening up sanitary pads to public discussion and reducing the taboo, which brings them to women who previously wouldn't have bought them at any price.

And of course he's also creating jobs for women and helping rural communities be more self-sufficient. There's so much more happening here than just discount products.

primitivesuave2• 12 years ago

He believes that big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas he prefers the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," he says.

What a profound and inspiring worldview.

arjn3• 12 years ago

Indeed. Here's another one :

"Luckily I'm not educated," he tells students. "If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future."

hoggle3• 12 years ago

"If you get rich, you have an apartment with an extra bedroom - and then you die."

"I've accumulated no money but I accumulate a lot of happiness."

-Arunachalam Muruganantham

yati• 12 years ago

Zen mind is the beginner's mind :)

thaumasiotes5• 12 years ago

Perhaps, but the difference between butterflies and mosquitoes isn't really in damage to the food (virtually zero in both cases)... it's in the fact that butterflies perform a service (pollination) for the flowers. Mosquitoes quite literally live and die by the lightness of their touch; compare the survival rates of human-feeding mosquitoes (not 100%, but not far off) and human-feeding horseflies (0%).

dharmach• 12 years ago

When I show moon, look at the moon, not at my finger (another quote).

cma2• 12 years ago

http://www.mosquitoreviews.com/mosquitoes-niche-pollinate.ht...

mjklin• 12 years ago

Reminds me of this quote:

"I would like to call your attention to a super piece of technology, the sailing ship. The sailing ship going through the sea is unlike a bulldozer. The sea closes behind the ship. The ship does no damage to the sea. The sailing ship employs the wind which is swirling ceaselessly around the earth without depleting any of the energy of the universe..." - Buckminster Fuller, from his piece in Alvin Toffler's book The Futurists.

facepalm• 12 years ago

However, a lot of woods were transformed into deserts because all the trees were chopped down for building sailing ships.

javert• 12 years ago

What a profound and inspiring worldview.

You think so? If all those "mosquitos" decided to stop pestering you, you'd probably revise your analysis.

Udo• 12 years ago

This is an amazingly inspiring story, I love the entrepreneurial spirit and dedication of Mr Muruganantham.

However, there is a bigger story hiding behind this personal triumph. It's clear that people living in impoverished areas are not in a position to buy sanitary products at market rates (being sold at a margin of 4000% or more). But for example many do have access to cheap raw materials. It makes a ton of sense to simply make that stuff locally for a fraction of the cost, and with that comes a much greater independence for those poor regions. Let's hope that in time this becomes a trend that expands to many industries.

igul222• 12 years ago

The article mentions that commercial napkins sold for 4 rupees despite cotton being 1/4000th the cost, but also says farther down that the locally produced ones sell for an average of 2.5 rupees each. That's a 38% discount: significant, but it doesn't seem like a game-changing difference to me. I imagine that if this catches on, the larger manufacturers will likely just cut their margins to compete.

On a more general note, one of the big reasons for the Industrial Revolution's switch to mass-production was that making goods in huge factories is more efficient, and ultimately cheaper, than producing them locally in small quantities. Economies of scale are powerful.

kamaal2• 12 years ago

>Economies of scale are powerful.

A lot of companies dealing with products like these spend insane money on advertising, marketing and other mechanisms to sell their product. I think Pepsi can sell their drink at 1/10th price if they dropped the ads, sponsorships, marketing etc.

And not to mention. People themselves perceive cheaper products as that of low quality.

matsemann• 12 years ago

> doesn't seem like a game-changing difference to me

The big difference here is that there is women selling these in private to other women. No man behind a counter. When the women come together about this, it may end up not being such a taboo, and they get advise on how to actually do this. So the game changer here isn't the price, but the community and independence for the women evolving around this product.

fractalb2• 12 years ago

"I imagine that if this catches on, the larger manufacturers will likely just cut their margins to compete."

That'll will never happen because these village women have never been their customers.

hoggle3• 12 years ago

I would think the decentralised approach would always be able to compete when we factor in transportation costs which usually make up a pretty significant percentage of the actual sales price with centralised mass production. Much more of the money stays in the local economies too.

http://www.mapsofindia.com/top-ten/india-crops/cotton.html

Even if this particular business model would "only" work in India it'd be a success.

I'm still in total awe, Mr. Muruganantham is a true hacker.

http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#believe1

nekopa• 12 years ago

Also, as someone researched below, the price now is between 10-25 R. But as someone else said, I think the involvement of the women in production and distribution is the real game changer.

I also liked his quote that no person dies of poverty, but from ignorance.

vidarh2• 12 years ago

38% discount + 10 new jobs per machine. And each additional woman who can now afford to use them, is one more woman who is now more likely to be able to hold down a job or complete school.

I also don't think it's as simple as cutting margins. Note how much of the issue is/was down to social taboos and people being embarrassed about even things like buying them from men in the local shops.

Eventually, sure - as it says in the article he does not see himself as competing with the big manufacturers, but as opening up new markets for them. But if they make inroads it will not not be a bad thing.

yhlasx• 12 years ago

4 rupee price was before, when he first went to buy them. Years passed, and India has crazy amounts of inflation, and now it costs 2.5 rupees. I think if calculated, he probably made somewhat of a 70+% discount or more.

khc2• 12 years ago

The cotton was 1/40th of the cost: "10g (less than 0.5oz) of cotton, which at the time cost 10 paise (£0.001), should sell for 4 rupees (£0.04) - 40 times the price"

dirkgently3• 12 years ago

One of the biggest problems with this forum is very narrow minded view of things looking through a limited binoculars of a capitalist culture when everything has to boil down to profit in pure money terms.

What this guy is achieving is more than bringing down the price.

The job he is creating for these women is providing incalculable benefit to themselves, their families, their children and is adding more to the society (which operates on a completely different value system than your own) that can not be calculated in 20 pause less per pad.

Also, you mentioned the scale of economy, but didn't see that he achieved this price reduction without mass scale production which in itself is a big achievement.

Without going in much details, I'd say the capitalist approach does not always benefit the society. I know everybody here is a superstar techie working on the next big social success to allow people do more fluff, other people in other worlds may have different priorities.

gus_massa• 12 years ago

What are the cost of the material + the proportional part of the 10 salaries + other costs?

* He weighed it in his hand and wondered why 10g (less than 0.5oz) of cotton, which at the time cost 10 paise (£0.001), should sell for 4 rupees (£0.04) - 40 times the price.*

This is the first estimation of the material cost. Then he learned that they use cellulose. And I don't know if it considers the cost of the surrounding cloth or the plastic wrap. Just assume this is accurate and pick a material cost of 0.10 rupees/pad.

[...] and provides employment for 10 women. They can produce 200-250 pads a day [...]

Assuming a 20 days/month work, we get 500 pads/month/worker. The minimum salary is slightly bigger than ~100 rupees, let's say 0.02 rupees/pad

I don't know the details in India, but tax and retirement founds and security health may add a 50%, that is 0.01 rupees/pad.

A manual machine costs around 75,000 Indian rupees (£723) - a semi-automated machine costs more.

To recover machine the cost in 5 years, with 60000 pads/year, the result is 0.25 rupees/pad.

First, a machine similar to a kitchen grinder breaks down the hard cellulose into fluffy material, which is packed into rectangular cakes with another machine.

Well, I don't know the cost of cellulose. Just assume that it's a good approximation to consider the cost of an equivalent amount of cotton instead, as in the first paragraph. [ * ]

Another cost source is the gas to cook the cellulose and the electricity for the light in the building and the building maintenance cost and ... I don't know how to do a good estimation of them, so just forget them.

And don't forget to add taxes.

Then my optimistic cost is 0.38 ruppes/pad and they sell them for 2.5 rupees, so it's a x6.6 margin, instead of a x25 margin.

[ * ] If I'm free to invent numbers, I'd like to double the material cost from 0.1 to 0.2 rupees/pad to consider the changes in the material. Then the total estimation is 0.48 ruppes/pad and the margin reduced to x5.2.

hsuresh• 12 years ago

That's a 38% discount: significant, but it doesn't seem like a game-changing difference to me.

That's because it doesn't take into consideration the biggest cost into consideration - the cost of human capital. A larger manufacturer cannot cut down the costs drastically, as the human capital at bigger companies is much larger than a small scale business.

noonespecial2• 12 years ago

The 2.5 stayed local and made jobs. Its a huge difference. In essence, he gave the locals "permission" to produce these things for themselves.

Wealth disparity is an interesting animal. The rich don't consume 1000's of times more resources than the poor despite having 1000's of times more 'money'. The wealth divide seems to function like an insidious form control wherein the uber-rich are able to deny local markets permission to do things for themselves.

Its great to see when guys like this realize its all just made of paper (literally and figuratively in this case) and they can actually just do it for themselves.

cma2• 12 years ago

It says he initially thought that and later learned that cotton wasn't enough, that they used cellulose from bark.

dredmorbius• 12 years ago

Economies of scale are powerful.

Some economies of scale are attainable with small numbers of (or single) craftsmen. If you can batch operations, one person can rotate though steps of a process over the course of a day, or of days.

Another factor in the Industrial Revolution was the addition of both energy and capital. Where early energy sources were often inconveniently located: mill towns were, literally, located on waterways or elsewhere free energy was possible, often quite distant (and over very poor roads) from major populations, which is to say, either labor or markets.

The revolutions of steam and electricity meant that the scale of operations of factories could be both scaled up and down: smaller-scale equipment means that a local shop can produce goods, though typically this means on a highly specialized basis.

Other factors tend to increase cost of goods: advertising, marketing, and competitive fencing via exclusive marketing arrangements, patent enforcement, and the like.

rmc• 12 years ago

The imoverished areas also have a large supply of cheap labour (themselves). If you bring the manufacuring local, then it could be cheaper.

slaxman• 12 years ago

Very True. There is one point the article missed. Many women now barter sanitary pads instead of paying with money. For example, in some rural areas, women exchange sanitary pads for vegetables from the farmer. IMHO that's amazing and something multinationals cannot do.

Edit: link http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/features/bartering-veget...

bertil2• 12 years ago

Actually, they say so, and mention onion. I think it’s part of the overall decentralised approach that the article mentions, showing brands, but doesn’t entirely cover: price, product bundle, marketing efforts all appear to be locally decided.

denzil_correa3• 12 years ago

It's clear that people living in impoverished areas are not in a position to buy sanitary products at market rates

A study in 2011 said that 70% couldn't afford sanitary napkins [0]. Until 2011 or so, sanitary napkins attracted a 14% luxury tax [1]. They were now reduced to 1%, only after pressure from NGOs.

[0] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/70-cant-afford-sani...

[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/08/ove...

darklrd• 12 years ago

Truly, a very motivating story.

mipapage• 12 years ago

Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia identified this a long time ago. His ideal would be that their products are manufactured for the local market (or manufactured locally). However since they also strive to create a sustainable supply chain, and this requires control, it is not currently possible.

I wonder if 'letting go' of the supply chain - regardless of the repercussions - would allow these methods to evolve...

qwerta2• 12 years ago

I like this article a lot.

Similar problem was in communist Czechoslovakia. There was only one factory making hygiene products for entire country, but it burned down on second year of 5 year plan. Central planning committee could not be arsed to change the plan...

hedges• 12 years ago

While pursuing his entrepreneurial dream, he walked around asking women for their used sanitary pads (while most men struggle to ask for a date), almost gets tied to a tree when a witch doctor incites the local villagers against him, has his wife leave him (only to come back after his success), and even his mother abandoned him; still he goes on.

And then, even after having practically everyone around him ostracize and abandon him, he doesn't go for the money, but remains humble and does the best he can to make the world a better place.

Shivetya2• 12 years ago

she did not return because of his success, she returned because he was no longer bringing shame upon his family. As the article mentions, there many taboos in their society, there is the caste system that provides separation (even tint of skin can) and of course separation of sexes. So his single minded pursuit made life untenable for her where they lived, it even drove off his own mother. You did note that she merely went back to her mom, she didn't run off with another man. Essentially, she was waiting till he either gave up the pursuit or succeeded, I am quite sure they would be together regardless.

Hell there is odd separation in the states amongst some of the workers from that country. You can see it in the groupings, who has lunch together, those who walk apart or turn down a hall when meeting

vineetraja• 12 years ago

> the caste system that provides separation (even tint of skin can)

are you suggesting that caste system is related to skin color?

arjn3• 12 years ago

Those who aren't from the Subcontinent may not fully appreciate this man's achievement.

I'm very impressed by his dedication, perseverance and inspiring outlook on life.

gadders• 12 years ago

He deserves some sort of Nobel prize.

andrelaszlo• 12 years ago

"If you get rich, you have an apartment with an extra bedroom - and then you die."

Something to think about.

PhantomGremlin• 12 years ago

Contrast this grass roots effort with OLPC, a grandiose plan to distribute One Laptop per Child to the third world. The best quip I ever read about that was: "OLPC is a rich man's idea of what poor men need. It's like donating an expresso machine to a homeless shelter."

Instead, as the article makes clear, many poor villages don't even have ready access to clean water. This one humble guy has done more good for more people in India than 1000 grandiose schemes such as OLPC. And he wants to expand to 106 countries. I wish him well.

vacri3• 12 years ago

It's not a competition.

Also, does your quipper think that women aren't important? I always find it amusing when people wax philosophical about equality whilst retreating into sexist terminology to do so. Instead of 'poor men', 'the poor' or 'poor people' works to the same effect.

sliverstorm• 12 years ago

OLPC was created by a man (hence 'rich man'), and rich man/poor man is a more powerful literary device than rich man/the poor.

vidarh2• 12 years ago

Instead, as the article makes clear, many poor villages don't even have ready access to clean water.

Not that tired old argument again. Yes, it is true. But lots also do. And lots have cellular broadband, and tons of relatively poor people have access to smartphones. Not all of the third world is the same.

And looking at the OLPC site now, they're up to 2.4 million of the thing. Not quite the numbers they'd hoped for, perhaps, but still 2.4 million children in developing countries who now have access to computing.

There's room for projects trying to address more than one issue, for more than one group of people.

tootie• 12 years ago

The OLPC wasn't about getting luxury electronics in the hands of the poor, it was about getting them free self-directed education. It was an attempt to leapfrog all of them fundamental problems of poverty by empowering people to do things for themselves.

kamaal2• 12 years ago

As an Indian, I can see what pain this guy went through. Fighting the society to build a start up like this, with this kind of taboo attached to the product? All the best trying to build a start up at the first place. You are almost treated like you are doing it because you absolutely are incapable of doing anything else.

And having the gumption to fight years of laughter, isolation, mockery and ridicule to only chase what you believe in is a very different thing than just building a company. You are fighting forces that you would do anything to see you fail. And this is beyond the merit of your product.

I salute this guy for not just what he has achieved. Though the margins he achieved will be eventually matched by bigger companies.

In many ways this is like the first man climbing the Everest or first space agency going to the moon. Others have been there after the first attempt. But the people who do it first, face significant obstacles. And they inspire all of us.

einhverfr2• 12 years ago

I don't know that the bigger companies will achieve the success. This guy's brilliance is in grasping the same economic reality that exists behind open source software, namely that the wider dispersed ownership of the tools one uses to produce things are, the easier it is to achieve long-term success.

StavrosK• 12 years ago

Yeah but I made an app to send your friends links with one less click!

general_failure• 12 years ago

Here take a billion.

anon4• 12 years ago

Pshaw. I'm releasing an app tomorrow that sends your friends links unless you click. It takes -1 clicks to send a link, so I'm calling it the -1ink.

fractalb2• 12 years ago

I also appreciate this man's efforts. But I slightly disagree with your view point. He never tried to build a startup, he just tried to solve a problem in our society. All these news about businesses and startups corrupted our mind, aren't they?

anilgulecha2• 12 years ago

He never tried to build a startup, he just tried to solve a problem

Sounds exactly like a startup.

forgottenpaswrd• 12 years ago

I am not Indian, but from a European country, and I had lots of things in common with this person when I created my start up.

When you want to change the world, nobody understands you.

Then suddenly things start working, and everybody "just knew" what you were doing was important.

They say that you identify pioneers by the arrows in their back.

einhverfr2• 12 years ago

There's a lot to this article. See how the distributed form of production really works, and these sanitary pad machines really aren't that different from open source software. See how they change the world and again, the distributed ownership and small business approach does it.

And additionally, why it is never a good idea to underestimate someone because of a lack of formal education.

avighnay• 12 years ago

It is even better hearing the story from him straight http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4_MeS6SOwk

saevarom• 12 years ago

"He fashioned a sanitary pad out of cotton and gave it to Shanthi, demanding immediate feedback. She said he'd have to wait for some time - only then did he realise that periods were monthly. 'I can't wait a month for each feedback, it'll take two decades!'"

Sounds like he got a pretty solid biology lesson along the way.

adaml_623• 12 years ago

That quote emphasised to me how dangerous ignorance is and how important education is in this world.

simsalapim3• 12 years ago

Or you just get menstruation cups? Might be a bit more expensive initially but cheaper longterm and a lot more environmentally friendly. http://www.ruby-cup.com/en/

callum85• 12 years ago

I know two women who have tried those. In both cases they tried for several months to get used to them, but they gave up eventually because they're so unpleasant to use, and it never gets any easier. Apparently.

simsalapim3• 12 years ago

Using one myself and best thing I've ever tried! Takes some practice but once you got the hang of it it works great. But think it's different from woman to woman!

gms77772• 12 years ago

There are women who find that menstrual cups aren't for them, but in my experience, they tend to be the exception. Using one myself, and having turned many of my friends onto them, they're generally hailed as the greatest thing ever invented around here. Not to say theres anything wrong with your friends, because everyone likes what they likes, just wanted to throw my own experience.

krrrh• 12 years ago

I feel like most of the university-educated young women I know use Diva Cups or Keepers (and many don't mind talking about them and promoting them to others or I wouldn't know that). I think their usage really depends on local culture, social norms, propensity to shop in organic grocery stores where they are often sold, etc.. The first women I knew who used them started in the early nineties.

hereonbusiness• 12 years ago

Cups seem a lot more expensive, you can buy almost 700 sanitary pads for the retail price of 1 ruby cup ($28 ~ 1735 rupees). Also, the pads are more available and create jobs for women in rural areas because they are produced and sold locally.

I would give this one to Muruganantham.

simsalapim3• 12 years ago

You definitely have a point! But I think the margins are pretty high and I'd rather see that they'd go in to producing cheap cups than cheap pads :)

denzil_correa3• 12 years ago

Cups, tampons are still have a social stigma attached to them in India. Napkins are non-obstrusive as well.

gms77772• 12 years ago

As a loud supporter for menstrual cups, and someone who is admittedly not that familiar with Indian culture, I can see there being a large cultural barrier towards adoption of menstrual cups, as they require you to get, well, a little up close and personal with your own body. Even in the US, I know a few people that are completely uncomfortable with the idea and won't use menstrual cups or tampons without applicators (or tampons at all).

Forplax• 12 years ago

If the subject is so shameful and taboo that the women mentioned in this article can't even dry their sanitary rags in the sun, do you really see them boiling a menstrual cup in the family's cooking pot once a month to sterilize it?

desouzt• 12 years ago

"Luckily I'm not educated," he tells students. "If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future."

Love this quote!

intull• 12 years ago

I'm so glad this made it to HN. From an Indian societal perspective, what he achieved is just marvellous and outstanding! It takes tremendous courage and determination to do something like this in India! Salute to this man!

davedx• 12 years ago

If you are as inspired by this story as I was, you can mail him here: muruganantham_in@yahoo.com

(His email address is public on his company's site [1])

[1] http://newinventions.in/contactus.aspx

eyeareque• 12 years ago

I really enjoyed this story and remember first hearing about him a few years ago. Truly inspiring man.

It makes me wonder, how many other people are out there who have the same passion for something, but haven't had any success? Only a select few will have success, most will fail. I think we should celebrate the people who took risks and failed too. But sadly you won't find articles written about them as it isn't a happy ending like this one.

dsego• 12 years ago

Why buy disposable pads when you can use rags and wash them? Same for diapers.

jsmeaton2• 12 years ago

It says so in the article. Women felt shame leaving them out to dry since the subject is so taboo.

noselasd• 12 years ago

I'd also imagine regular washing such rags in overcrowded areas with an absence of infrastructure can cause issues - as would it be in places where people (mainly women) need to spend a significant amount of the day just to get hold of water.

denzil_correa3• 12 years ago

Why buy disposable pads when you can use rags and wash them?

Hygiene

thaumasiotes5• 12 years ago

Same for diapers.

Much of the point of having any money at all is so I can avoid doing things I hate doing. Are things really so different for you?

logfromblammo3• 12 years ago

Why use washable rags when you can use a diva cup?

I suspect the answer is the same in both cases: lack of clean water and effective sterilization methods. If you wash your rags in dirty water and do not expose them to the sterilizing UV rays of direct sunlight, you're giving yourself infections. The machine uses a UV light to sterlize, and does not require a reliable water supply.

When every village in India has access to ample amounts of clean-from-the-tap water, they may choose to revisit their current solution.

khc2• 12 years ago

So the trick is: lie to existing manufacturers to get the schematics, build simplified/more manual machines, use really cheap labors, and probably lower the profit margin? Reminds me of knockoff products but then it's probably a phase that developing countries go through.

hoggle3• 12 years ago

The trick is to love yourself.

dirkgently3• 12 years ago

No. The real trick is to puke at such comments.

keithxm23• 12 years ago

Here's a link to his very inspiring TED Talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/arunachalam_muruganantham_how_i_sta...

dirkgently3• 12 years ago

Jesus. Why does TED has to go and spoil every fucking good thing?

diydsp• 12 years ago

I believe TED is not about presenting tech as a "savior."

I believe TED is a sandbox for a number of powerful people to work out their interpersonal arguments about whether tech is good for the world or not. As such you will hear all presentations subtly presented in this light without the participants (presenters nor audience members) being aware. It's essentially a gladiatorial arena funded by the well-to-do, cleverly disguised as another "gee whiz" tech conference.

As such, stories and material are distorted toward arguing the spectral ends of the conference creators.

This is why there are so many stories presented that "make tech look silly, bad or overextended." They're placements by forces within the internal TED conflict that are trying to diminish public opinion about the benefits of technological practice.

Make no mistake- these people are happy to see TED come off as foolish or ruinous, b/c it supports their contingent's goals. They have founded TED with the intention of presenting foolish ideas to tarnish the concept of technology as a practice.

So, the age old advice applies here - take everything with a grain of salt. When you hear a presentation, get what you can out of it, realize it's not the full picture and seek out the missing pieces. Do not rely on TED for a coherent or complete picture of anything. It's just an artifact of debating idealogues.

PhasmaFelis2• 12 years ago

What is with this ridiculous knee-jerk reaction against anything TED? If that video had been exactly the same except for the TED name, you would've been fine with it. But you've decided TED must be bad, and therefore anything connected with TED is also bad. Lose the silly bias and let good things be good things.

grdvnl• 12 years ago

"You always have a girl in white jeans, jumping over a wall," he says. "They never talk about hygiene."

Look's like the marketing folks at P&G were selling this stuff to the mostly affluent. Therefore, I am guessing they never bothered to sell the hygiene angle.

fromdoon• 12 years ago

You have to hear him talk ...

http://www.ted.com/talks/arunachalam_muruganantham_how_i_sta...

He is so full of energy and his straight talk will win your heart ... What a person ... cheers ..

jaldoretta2• 12 years ago

I'm a female founder in the US with a startup that has to do with menstruation, and I cannot even begin to tell you how uncomfortable people (male and female) get when I talk with them about it. For a man in India (where this topic is exponentially more taboo) to undertake a business like this and persist despite the backlash is so incredibly inspiring. The benefit of his business goes so far beyond simply reducing napkin prices...he's helping to break down taboos that exist in India (and across the globe), and giving women opportunities (not to mention more knowledge and confidence about their bodies) that they never would have had otherwise.

Absolutely amazing.

araneae• 12 years ago

Very cool! I use cycle for this which only does averaging, which works okay but it's seriously old and clonky. I was wondering why someone hadn't done this already.

jaldoretta2• 12 years ago

Yes...there are plenty of old and clunky apps out there for this =)

We're hoping to change that. I really want this space to become something that men and women, alike, will talk about. Good UI and UX has been missing, and women definitely deserve better.

geekam• 12 years ago

http://readytogroove.com/ looks like a nice app. I have to try that.

huherto• 12 years ago

A good example, why diversity is important. I would have never thought of it.

marquis• 12 years ago

Also female with quite a few year experience (please don't let me be 13 again). Many of my circle have moved away from replaceable products in exchange for reusable products, for environmental reasons. But you need very good access to clean and hot water. So there will be another revolution to come, once Tampax loses it's hold.

nate_meurer3• 12 years ago

I want to hug this guy. Like, really. Buy me a airplane ticket.

Arunachalam Muruganantham is a hero. I use that word in its full magnitude. Since I am now an expert on the matter, having read the entire article, I'll speculate on what motivates this man:

- Grit. Crazy amounts of grit. The article is full of good quotes, but my favorite is what he said after being abandoned by his mother:

"It was a problem for me," he says. "I had to cook my own food."

- Humility combined with hunger:

"Luckily I'm not educated," he tells students. "If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future."

"Every time he comes to know something new, he wants to know everything about it," [his wife] says.

- Love of humanity, on some level at least:

"Anyone with an MBA would immediately accumulate the maximum money. But I did not want to. Why? Because from childhood I know no human being died because of poverty - everything happens because of ignorance."

As an aside, I LOVE the picture of his wife and daughter toward the end. This one photograph lends better context to the story than all the others combined. I know a single picture means nothing, but the look in his daughter's eyes makes me think she'll inherit something of her dad's baddassness.

And as another aside, bloody god-damn fucking hell, are the following bits really true?

There are still many taboos around menstruation in India. Women can't visit temples or public places, they're not allowed to cook or touch the water supply - essentially they are considered untouchable.

There are also myths and fears surrounding the use of sanitary pads - that women who use them will go blind, for example, or will never get married.

dspillett• 12 years ago

are the following bits really true?

Unfortunately yes, and it isn't just in India. Many religions (if the relevant magic texts are followed literally and/or followed by the more aggressive interpretations) consider menstruating women to be a curse upon the world to be shunned until they get their shit together and stop all that bleeding nonsense.

BhavdeepSethi• 12 years ago

"Women can't visit temples or public places, they're not allowed to cook or touch the water supply".

I've seen educated folks doing this as well, so, sadly yes. It is true. Most women follow it because their mothers/sisters have been doing it. Since it is so common, people tend to accept these superstitions more easily.

apalmer2• 12 years ago

No REALISTICALLY

If as stated in this article in these regions during menstruation:

1) The woman uses dirt, sand, ash and rags which are never sterilized but just reused month after month.

2) 70% of all pregnancy related medical issues can be tied back to this lack of hygene

Then its not unreasonable to say that the women are unclean in this period and should not have contact with the village water supply... its actually good sense.

josephschmoe• 12 years ago

You should also consider the culture these myths create. It forces women to depend on one-another for a significant portion of the time, which, among other things, is a good anti-rape mechanism.

Certainly, these are crazy and superstitious, but given the realities of the times they come from, many of them were a net benefit to their rural society (or have minimal impact) - which is how they've survived to this day.

We have better knowledge now, and we should embrace it, but someone isn't necessarily stupid for following these rules.

yawz2• 12 years ago

Religions (and consequently certain traditions) that have survived until today have an incredible obsession with mensturation. This is just another stick to beat and humiliate women with. It is unbelievable (for a questioning, inquisitive human being) that Bronze Age traditions and beliefs are still revered today.

nsxwolf7• 12 years ago

I'm not aware of an obsession with menstruation in any major variant of Christianity.

jfc2• 12 years ago

There are also myths and fears surrounding the use of sanitary pads - that women who use them will go blind, for example, or will never get married.

Such myths abound globally, especially in rural environments. Worse myths exist around tampons--that a woman who uses a tampon is no longer a virgin. The implications of this in more rural societies are staggering, as young women can lose marital prospects or even be killed.

What impressed me most about his work was the lengths he went to in order to understand the problems the women were facing. That "football uterus" made him an outcast and he was rejected, which is not wholly unlike how menstrual women were treated in his village. He really got the full "customer" experience.

His work will also greatly help those women who have severe menstrual bleeding problems, in which they bleed non-stop for weeks (or months or, sadly, years) at a time. Not only are they outcasts in their communities, but even children will pelt them with rocks. It's profoundly sad.

It might sound trite, but we hear about the man who built the Taj Mahal for his beloved wife. Look at how much he is revered! Now consider what this man has done out of love for his wife--he has far eclipsed even that magnificent structure.

silencio2• 12 years ago

Worse myths exist around tampons--that a woman who uses a tampon is no longer a virgin.

Lest someone believe this is a belief held only in rural areas, let it be clear that ideas like this are incredibly common in not-so-rural places like in the US. It's usually accompanied by some equally ridiculous beliefs about what virginity is in the first place (protip: it's about having sex for the first time, not about whether the woman bleeds or how "tight" anything is), hard to find comprehensive and unbiased education, the total lack of knowledge of or misinformation concerning alternatives to pads and tampons (reusables, cups), and straight up shaming and misinformation about birth control usage. The big difference between the poorer and the richer is that honor killings, genital mutilation, and whatnot are far less common for the latter.

I love what this guy did for his wife and other women in the same situation, but there's no shortage of similar problems for women elsewhere and I wonder if there will be something revolutionary on that front too any time soon. I've been considering going to med school and see if I can eventually merge my interest in that and tech at the same time to do something here but that's a long term iffy goal, and surely there are already others interested in the same thing too.

I'm pretty lucky to have had reasonable and educated parents that were willing to tell me (or let me discover) all I wanted to know about these things when I was 10. But it feels like at least once a week if not daily I discover a teen or a preteen or even an adult woman asking basic questions on one of the women-focused communities I spend my time in. I wish I could help them. :(

auctiontheory• 12 years ago

Every religion has elaborate rules to oppress woman. FYI, the Hebrew Bible has all the same stuff. (So I read in The Year of Living Biblically.)

It's a question of "how literally does society obey those rules?" Will Americans who use the Bible to justify their bigotry against gay people ... also agree to lock up Sarah Palin for five days/month? Not so far.

nate_meurer3• 12 years ago

Thank you, quite right. The ongoing fight by (a slowly shrinking segment of) American society to continue blatant persecution of gay people is one of our most shameful failings. And I agree, the Church (big C) is largely responsible.

lil_cain• 12 years ago

The rules in the bible are hebrew purity laws, which do not apply to gentiles (as decided in Acts). The verses most often used against homosexuality are not hebrew purity law - they're from St. Paul's letters.

lostlogin3• 12 years ago

On a school trip 15ish years ago which related to the subject of religion ago we got to a mosque and were then asked if anyone was menstruating. If yes, don't come in. Credit to a male friend of mine, he yelled out that the male next to him was. Its a pity all the males didn't react this way. http://islamqa.info/en/128576

holycow19• 12 years ago

Agreed, these are the type of heroes that change the world and often go unnoticed.

machbio• 12 years ago

People interested in seeing his motivation to work in one of the InkTalks - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4_MeS6SOwk

piyush_soni2• 12 years ago

I had seen this YouTube video of his (TEDx), where he starts with a question "what do you need a meaningful life?" ... and was almost brought to tears when finally he repeats the question and answers it: "So what do you need to lead a meaningful life?" - 'All you need is a Problem.'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1iWhljEbTE

piyush_soni2• 12 years ago

Aah. Badly formed the first sentence. I meant "What do you need to lead a meaningful life"

amalakar• 12 years ago

There are still many taboos around menstruation in India. Women can't visit temples or public places, they're not allowed to cook or touch the water supply - essentially they are considered untouchable.

Note that in earlier times getting water in certain region might mean traveling for miles and then bringing water home, which could be pretty heavy. Same is true for cooking, an Indian joint family could be very big (20/25 members). And cooking for the whole family in open fire is not an easy feat either. So most of household work in a big joint family could be extremely strenuous. Some of these traditions let the woman avoid strenuous work during the mensuration.

Though I am speculating here, some of the tradition indeed could be meant for the well being of the woman. It may not be very relevant in the modern world though.

Yourfags• 12 years ago

he really is!

neotrinity• 12 years ago

He has given a ted talk in bangalore

http://www.ted.com/talks/arunachalam_muruganantham_how_i_sta...

enscr• 12 years ago

That's a LOT of determination. I'm amazed by his courage. There must be more to the story that was left out. Salute to the gentleman. A godsend.

rootuid• 12 years ago

What a bloody mess !

wehadfun• 12 years ago

this guy is awesome

hislaziness• 12 years ago

I see a lot of comments discussing the cost. I do not think cost (or profits) were the driver. Surely higher cost make it difficult for poor to acquire the pads but the taboo is a much bigger hurdle to cross, which this gentleman has amazingly addressed.

wtbob• 12 years ago

He believes that big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas he prefers the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," he says.

While I don't believe that big business is necessarily parasitic, I love this metaphor.

njharman• 12 years ago

Favorite business advice "quote"? / paraphrase.

Be like a butterfly, taking some nectar but not damaging the flower. Not not like the mosquito, a parasite.

shreeshga• 12 years ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T7qzufEI9U I think this is his best speech, straight from heart.

erikpukinskis2• 12 years ago

The optimal technical solution to this problem, for the vast majority of the population, is menstrual cups. They are completely reusable and generally perform better.

To me the long term challenge is the social problem of convincing people that menstrual cups are not gross and are not going to hurt them.

I totally respect this guy for finding an intermediate solution that helps his community though. I don't live in India so I have no idea what the specific cultural challenges are.

mzs2• 12 years ago

Don't know about that. From talking with my wife they are very messy and need to be cleaned a lot or they smell, like boiled every day or two - so that's why there are disposable ones and they are more popular. Also you need a lot of clean tissues each time you insert, rinse, and replace it - which brings you right back to the using dirty rags again cause there is stigma to clean and dry them properly in those cultures. Anyway her ob/gyn told her to stop using them when she got a IUD, and that's another issue with them.

scarecrowbob• 12 years ago

My wife has had a different experience; she reports she's quite happy with hers and it requires less maintenance than alternatives. Of course, this is a very small sample size, a second hand report, and, of course, still surrounded by all the attendant larger issues....

erikpukinskis2• 12 years ago

It sounds like your wife is the kind of person who wants her body to be completely free of any sort of body smells and doesn't want to come in contact with any kind of body fluids. Those are exactly what I was referring to when I said there is cultural resistance. My community are "pro-natural" and don't have issue with the smell, nor do they use tissues. They just use their hands and believe that vaginas and menstrual fluid have scents and that it's ok. It's just cultural differences.

rajneesh1315• 12 years ago

I am from north India and agree that menstruation is still taboo in our culture (mostly in villages). -During menstruation cycle women (mostly married) sleep in separate room, they are not supposed to touch anything and after 4 days all the clothes/bedding they wear/use (even mattress) will be washed. -Most of these rules are tied to religion. -I think when these "rules" were started there were no sanitary pads, so may be this was done for hygiene sake, but today it doesn't make any sense. And I think in those days if someone wanted people to follow anything just say its required by your religion and people will blindly follow. -This guy is doing really great work, happy that BBC picked it up.

noisyboy• 12 years ago

I'm a bit tired of most of the taboos/problems of India being "mostly in villages". My entire family are city dwellers and every time there is an commercial for sanitary napkins on TV, the women have an expression of embarrassment and can't wait for it to get over (whereas scenes of violence from the movies are received perfectly fine).

rhc21042• 12 years ago

Is money a bottleneck to getting more of these machines out? If so, what charity would someone donate to?

alphakappa• 12 years ago

"If you get rich, you have an apartment with an extra bedroom - and then you die."

Crap, I don't think I've read anything that has hit me harder.

cdelsolar• 12 years ago

This is an amazing story!

lkrubner• 12 years ago

I have read a lot on the subject of how civil rights and the rule of law allowed the emergence of the Industrial Revolution, and this story reminds of that earlier epoch. As late as the 1670s, England was still burning witches (male and female) at the stake, to punish them for their witchcraft. But then Newton publishes Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica in 1687, the Glorious Revolution of 1688 brings in a new regime, the English Bill of Rights of 1689 ensures everyone a trial if they are accused, everyone has civil rights, and suddenly, among the legal and intellectual elites, it becomes widely understood that witchcraft does not actually exist, everything can be explained by science, and people doing weird stuff need to have their civil rights protected. And by the early 1700s men like Jethro Tull and Charles Townsend kick off the Agricultural Revolution, doing weird stuff like feeding turnips to cows and collecting all the manure -- spooky weird stuff that might have gotten them accused of witchcraft just 30 years earlier.

And this story reminds of that earlier epoch. When you bring in real innovation (innovation that touches upon people's profoundest taboo's and fears) you either have civil rights, or you end up dead. And it does say something hopeful about India that this man knew his basic civil rights were going to protect him from accusations of witchcraft. Though, of course, this part suggests that India could still improve its protections quite a bit:

"Worse was to come. The villagers became convinced he was possessed by evil spirits, and were about to chain him upside down to a tree to be "healed" by the local soothsayer. He only narrowly avoided this treatment by agreeing to leave the village. It was a terrible price to pay. "My wife gone, my mum gone, ostracised by my village" he says. "I was left all alone in life.""

tn132• 12 years ago

This is something that makes me both proud and sad about my home country India. We are still struggling with some of the basic problems that the developed world probably solved 100 years back. It makes me even more sad that just 60 years back India was hardly behind any other developed country.

Arunchalam's example is also a classic case of how Indian government has destroyed India's entrepreneurial zeal. When Arun introduced his cheap sanitary pad making machine, Indian government woke up and see an opportunity to gain votes of poor and goodwill of large companies.

Indian government came up with a scheme where poor women will get a "fixed" quota per month of sanitary pads paid for by tax payers.

--- Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MHFW) is set to embark upon an ambitious programme, reports The Hindu on 21st February 2010, to reach about 200 million women with 100 sanitary pads per person per annum with a budget of some INR 20 billion in next 3 to 6 months.

-- [Source: One of the email threads I was exchanging on this matter with a friend in government]

This is another Indian government scam where big companies like Johnson and Johnson etc. will provide these pads at taxpayers cost to the poor women while politicians will take their cut. Going by past experience even the pads wont reach the women.

Those who might be aware of India's economic history, it is full of such scams. Indian government often ran government sponsored health campaigns claiming things like

- "Wash your hands with soap after and before having food and going to toilet else it will will cause diseases."

- "Use iodized salt in food else your children will be born retarded".

- "Use toothbrush and toothpaste"

The reality is, even in rural areas the level of hygiene is way better. People used handmade soaps and herbal alternatives for soap. (Even I used them in my childhood). During my childhood oral hygiene involved brushing teeth with 5 different types of leaves, gargling with hot water mixed with a mixture of 15 different kind of powders which were comprised of different kind of tree skins, herbs and roots. My father still knows the formula and I used it successfully when I developed a gum related infection.

And you know what? Indians used plenty of sea salt in their food. We ate salted fish, Salted Pickles and what not.

Today it so happens that all these small scale industries are already dead. Not because they failed to innovate or compete on price. (In reality some companies like Vico succeeded with these traditional products) They failed because government actively tried to kill them in the name of public welfare.

Today I am buying a Colegate toothpaste which claims to contain "sea salt". The TV ad of this toothpaste shows a grandpa showing his grandson that his teeth are stronger at 80 purely because he used sea salt to brush his teeth in past. There are other companies out there which are selling toothpastes claiming to contain the exact same herbs that we used in past (Miswaak, Babool etc.)

When I visit Target and Wallmart I often see shelves full of crudely packaged soaps titled "Handmade Soap" selling at 3x the price of normal soap.

I feel sad for Arunachalam and many other people I know who are mad just like him because rest of us Indian citizens have failed to make a political choice which would have heralded these men as heroes.

Unsolicited Advice to Americans: I see American government taking same direction as that of Indian government in past and present. Pushing private interests of few in the name of poor. Buying votes by redistribution of wealth while wrecking incentives to be innovative. I might be wrong. But there is no cost to being cautious.

lake99• 12 years ago

Though the government is pretty corrupt, you seem to be paranoid in your criticism of it.

"Use iodized salt in food else your children will be born retarded".

"In India, the entire population is prone to IDD due to deficiency of iodine in the soil of the subcontinent and consequently the food derived from it. To combat the risk of IDD, salt is fortified with iodine. However, an estimated 350 million people do not consume adequately iodized salt and, therefore, are at risk for IDD. Of the 325 districts surveyed in India so far, 263 are IDD-endemic."[1]

People used handmade soaps and herbal alternatives for soap.

Handmade soaps are fine. The ads never said you should only use big-brand soaps. Just because it's called "herbal alternative", it does not mean that it is effective. Each family or each region has its own "herbal alternative". Are you saying that they are all as effective as soap?

5 different types of leaves, gargling with hot water mixed with a mixture of 15 different kind of powders

I have visited villages for various reasons. Most people I came across used one of three methods: neem twigs, salt, charcoal ash. Neem has some antimicrobial properties, but those who cleaned with salt were ruining their teeth. I doubt that ash benefited their oral hygiene. I dare say these villagers are better off with modern products.

The reality is, even in rural areas the level of hygiene is way better.

Better than what? If you're comparing villages to urban slums, sure. Are you forgetting that in villages, most people crap out in the open? And don't using soap afterwards? And did you read this article about women not using sanitary pads?

[1] http://www.icmr.nic.in/ijmr/2013/september/0922.pdf

rit• 12 years ago

And specifically, sea salt tends to be low in Iodine.

"Iodine, an element essential for human health, is present only in small amounts in sea salt,[1]" (cribbed from Wikipedia)

[1] http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es0719071

tn132• 12 years ago

The government actually banned the sale of non-iodized salt in India which was lifted only by the NDA government 10 years back.

iscrewyou• 12 years ago

Here come the patent holders...

seige• 12 years ago

There is another initiative that is approaching the problem from a different lens. Its called Menstrupedia (www.menstrupedia.com).

They are making an educational book in comic book format to dispel the massive amounts of myths around the topic.

kimonos• 12 years ago

Two thumbs up for this guy!

neves• 12 years ago

Thanks for the link. We think it is difficult to see from the point of view of our users. This guy proved quite the contrary. One of the best stories I've ever read here.

ilaksh• 12 years ago

The main problem is inhumane inequality. All of these "developing nations" are poor because they are oppressed and excluded by the financial powers. "Developing nation" is a racist term that attempts to cover economic neglect and oppression.

melindajb• 12 years ago

The next time someone complains about how hard startups are, show them this. Until you've walked around with a soccer ball full of goat's blood in your pants, after your wife and mother have abandoned you, you have nothing to complain about.

anilgulecha2• 12 years ago

"Until you've walked around with a soccer ball full of goat's blood in your pants, after your wife and mother have abandoned you, you have nothing to complain about."

Ha, awesome!

elwell• 12 years ago

"A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it"

xj• 12 years ago

He truly belongs to the breed that Apple's 'Think Different' commercial describes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SswMzUWOiJg

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. - Apple Inc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_Different

sciencesama• 12 years ago

http://www.ted.com/talks/arunachalam_muruganantham_how_i_sta...

not_that_noob• 12 years ago

Pg - is there a new comment filtering system?

An article on sanitary napkins, and no immature rag jokes? Is this really HN?

imaginary_bird• 12 years ago

While this man seems amazing and has done a great thing for a lot of women, it's a shame that the main problem still remains. Menstruation is still taboo, both in the west and in India. It would be nice if instead of importing the western method of dealing with it (using sanitary pads to dispose of our menstrual blood secretly and in the process creating mountains of rubbish - where do all the blood-stained "sanitary" napkins go?) the women could just wash their cloth pads and dry them in the sun. It seems quite terrible environmentally.

I'm a woman and grew up using disposable menstrual products. I only started using reusable ones when I was thirty because I have endometriosis that causes heavy bleeding (so I have to use postpartum type pads) and it weighed on my mind to be throwing them out all the time. Now I feel terrible about all those years. I don't need to wash them in hot water because it's sunny where I live. But I hide the bucket that I soak them in and I hang them out when my husband is not at home so he doesn't have to see them. Thankfully, I don't have to be so secretive about our baby's nappies.

The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary

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