Period pants company highlights tax discrimination against sustainable menstrual products

by Ruby Raut March 4, 2021

Given the climate crisis, you’d think that the Government would be moving heaven and Earth to make the greenest option the easiest and cheapest one too. Not so – at least when it comes to menstruation. Tax may have been dropped for tampons and pads (from 2021) but sustainable period products like period pants still have a 20% levy on them.

That’s crazy; over the course of someone’s menstrual life, they can get through up to 15,000 pads and tampons – the vast number of which will end up in landfill as plastic waste. Tampons tend to come wrapped in plastic, encased in a plastic applicator with plastic strings for easy removal.

Pads incorporate even more plastic – form the leak-proof base to the absorbent material. Sustainable period pants may not be to everyone’s taste but they do offer a viable solution to those nighttime leaks – negating the need for a monthly splurge on night pads. Whatever reason you may not want to use sustainable period products, pricing shouldn’t be one of them.