#CampaignUpdate November 2020
I am asking Malcolm Todd (Deputy Vice Chancellor) to finalise finances. Motion was passed at Student Council, now I am looking into how to implement the project and when is best to do the campaign. SU Shop is looking into the possibility of selling menstraul cups.
#CampaignUpdate October 2020
Student Say passed and motion now going to Student Council, started work on pricing up Cups for shop and for campaign. Now on the website and students can register their interest in the campaign.
#CampaignUpdate September 2020
Working with Sustainability Officer Laura Pickering to use Student Say to get this campaign going forward. Hoping of a joint force and utilizing Women’s Officer Niamh Burton to help push engagement and get more interest.
Our Mission
Our mission is to empower students by providing them with sustainable menstrual cups and comprehensive education on sexuality and reproductive rights. Allowing you to have a sustainable, cheaper menstrual product therefore saving your money and the environment.
Why?
The Cost Impacts: In 2015 UNICEF and the World Health Organization estimated that at least five hundred million people lack sufficient resources to manage their periods. With insufficient menstrual solutions, many people miss a week of education each month or they drop out for good. Too often people struggle to even afford pads and tampons. Although every person's cost is different, the average cost of periods is about £128 a year, or £10 a month. Period poverty is very much a thing: one in ten teenagers has been unable to afford tampons or sanitary towels.
The Environmental Impacts: Tampons, pads and panty liners along with their packaging and individual wrapping generate more than 200,000 tonnes of waste per year, and they all contain plastic, pads are around 90% plastic. Introducing and normalising menstrual cups could be a step in the right direction for climate change. Switching to a menstrual cup can save the environment from approximately 16,000 tampons, panty-liners and sanitary pads in your lifetime, which can take between 500-800 years to fully decompose.
The Solution?
The Menstrual Cup is a menstrual product made out of medical grade silicon that can be reused for up to 10 years, this means the lifetime cost of a cup user is a fraction of that of a traditional tampon or pad user. All this makes the Menstrual Cup the environmentally friendly and economically competitive solution to disposables.
What is a Menstrual Cup?
Menstrual cups are bell-shaped, made from medical-grade silicone and inserted into the vagina. Instead of absorbing blood like single-use pads or tampons, they collect blood, which is emptied, and the cup is washed and re-used.
BBC News reports "that menstrual cups are as leakproof as tampons and pads".
How do I get involved?
1. Register your interest in this Campaign HERE.
2. Have you been helped by the outcome of this campaign. Share your story with us.