washable cloth pads

Eco Femme, a women-led social enterprise based in Auroville in Puducherry has been producing and promoting washable cloth pads since 2010. These pads last for approximately 75 washes.

The group’s organic cotton flannel pads are made by 3 stitching units in Auroville and Bangalore. As many as 14,500 pads were sold at sub sidised prices directly and through Eco Femme’s partner organisations in 2016-17.

Started by Kathy Walkling, Jessamijn Miedema, Anita Budhraja, and Anbu Sironmani, Eco Femme originally aimed at exporting its pads to European countries based on feedback from Auroville’s multinational residents, but has since diversified into rural MHM programmes within India, especially in Tamil Nadu.

A Tiruchi-based water and sanitation NGO, Gramalaya, has come up with its own version of the reusable cloth pad that it distributes and sells under the ‘Feel Free’ brand.

“Though we have been in public sanitation for 31 years, we realised that adolescent girls were facing a problem of menstrual management only when we started working in rural schools, since 2015,” says S. Damodaran, founder and director of Gramalaya.

The ‘Feel Free’ cotton pads, developed in 2016, were tested for a year by Grmalaya’s 200 women staff before being launched, with learning material on MHM in English and Tamil, in 2017.

Over the past year, 30,000 of these pads have been distributed free through Gramalaya’s outreach programmes. A separate for-profit organisation markets the pads online and in export markets.

‘Feel Free’ pads use leftover knitted material or ‘banian’ cloth, sourced from garment factories in Tirupur. These are cut into layers and stitched together by tailors in self-groups guided by Gramalaya. There are 30 tailors, based in Thottiyam, Elurpatti, Balasamudram and Kolakudi villages near Tiruchi, who work full-time producing the pads. Around 3000 pads are produced every month.

Cloth pads must be washed and dried in direct sunlight.

“Many apartment blocks in cities like Chennai have prohibited the disposal of sanitary napkins even though they don’t have any alternative in place. In such cases, these reusable napkins are a real boon, because they can be washed and dried like the rest of the laundry,” says J. Geetha, director CSR Projects, Gramalaya.