Are your tampons a chemical toilet?
Sorry to be the harbinger of bad news, but cigarettes aren’t the only cotton filled plugs that can cause cancer.
The same pesky scientists that warned sunbathers that “too much sun” was bad for one's health and gently suggested that one should not “put their pets in the microwave”, have found a number of harmful chemicals that leach from tampons immediately into the bloodstream.
Tampons are indeed a chemical toilet.
Apparently, your soft squishy center is more absorbent than the tampon itself. In one study, for example, they found that the vagina was a viable orifice for antibiotic absorption. Who would have thunk it? Penicillin covered dildos anyone? No? Just me?
I digress, even with new tampon manufacturing methods, Dioxins are still found in cotton tampons. They cause super cancerous cumulative effects that the World Health Organization recognizes as “highly toxic”. Yay!
When we aren’t shoving this garbage into our bodies we are tossing it into our landfills and ocean. It is estimated that 20 billion tampons and pads are dumped into American landfills a year. This includes the plastic applicators, wrappers, and that infernal adhesive found on pads which somehow bonds with flesh better than eyelash glue.
We now know that plastics and other chemicals leach into the earth contaminating our groundwater and ecosystems. That is a fact. We also know that a lot of our trash ends up in the oceans through trash barges and river run-off. Giant sections of the ocean have garbage patches where our trash performs the three Fs: floats, festers, and farts (releases toxins into the air). The biggest of these patches is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch which is larger than Texas. That is saying a lot, since everything is usually bigger in Texas.
Why does this matter? Well, because of the turtles!
If you are like me, you were traumatized by pictures of sea turtles strangled by those plastic soda rings and religiously cut those plastic soda rings into confetti to prevent nightmares. Well, what if I told you that baby turtles will eat pretty much anything. They are like adorable little Pacmen chomping away at anything that looks tasty. This includes tampons and it takes only 14 grams of plastic to murder a sweet little baby turtle.
Don’t murder turtles (or yourself), use menstrual cups!
