EP13 | Menstrual Care and Waste

Access to menstrual hygiene is of critical importance to health and well being of women. Menstrual and other personal hygiene waste constitute around 6% of India’s total municipal waste. The biomedical nature of this waste, unsafe disposal practices and lack of segregation at source creates hazards and challenges in waste management - especially since manual handling remains widespread. Any discussion on increased access to hygiene has to discuss the waste management. But given shame associated with the subject, focusing on waste risks further stigmatising the topic. On this subject, we spoke with Smita Kulkarni, Co-founder of Stonesoup, a bangalore based startup who is working towards creating awareness about sustainable menstruation.