Sanitary Napkins and the Environmental impact – Part 3 – Compostable material and their challenges

Sanitary Napkins and the Environmental impact Part -3: Compostable Materials and their challenges

How to dispose a sanitary napkin? Have you heard of organic/ biodegradable/ compostable sanitary pads? Can sanitary napkins be 100% compostable? Can disposable products be recycled? What should be government’s policy around disposal of sanitary napkin waste?

This blog is a part of a series of 5 articles with the aim of answering some of the above questions and creating a complete picture of the life cycle of products to drive collective action towards better health and better environment.

Compostable Materials

Materials which biodegrade in a composting process through the action of naturally occurring microorganisms and do so to a high extent within a specified timeframe. The associated biological processes during composting will yield C02, water, inorganic compounds and biomass. They do not leave any visible contaminants or toxic residue/substances

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  • It is important to understand the various classification of compostable materials, which are:

    • Industrial Compostable: Products which degrade in an industrial composting plant within a period of 90 days. The industrial composting plant ensures that the compost material is maintained at a temperature of around 60C and presence of certain micro-organisms for the entire duration of 90 days.
    • Home Compostable: When referring to “home” or “backyard” composting, a cooler aerobic breakdown of organic material or waste is meant, usually in small-scale composters and by ‘slow-stack’ treatment methods at atmospheric temperatures and requires 90% degradation in 1 year.
    • Marine Compostable: A material which has the ability to completely biodegrade under marine environmental conditions including aerobic marine waters or anaerobic marine sediments within a specified timeframe, leaving no toxic substances or residue.

    One of the most devastating effects of plastic pollution is the leakage of plastics into our water bodies. It is important to differentiate between industrial, home and marine compost for the same reason. Most of the commercial compostable materials are certified as only industrial compostable, and hence they need to be composed in a central industrial composting plant. Landfilling or disposal in water bodies is harmful for environment.

    The following table shows some of the reputed global agencies, standards followed by them and logo provided by them for an approved industrial compostable product, which one should look for on the packaging of a product which is claimed to be compostable.

Challenges with use of Industrial compostable products:

    • An industrial compostable material will not degrade when it is simply dumped in landfills. The process of composting requires an industrial composting facility, which includes the compost material to be maintained at a temperature of around 60C and presence of certain micro-organisms for a duration of 90 days. Only then will the compost be created and can be used for agriculture.
    • Lack of awareness of end-users on segregation and disposal methods while using compostable products makes this a mammoth segregation and infrastructure challenge.
    • Compost material under anaerobic conditions (in landfills) is known to produce green house gases such as methane. Unless these green house gases are captured and put to use this is not entirely an environment friendly process.
    • Compostable material and recyclable material cannot be mixed up. This is a challenge for both the processes. Recyclable material when mixed with compostable material can render the entire batch of compost useless and it would have to be dumped in landfill. Similarly presence of compostable materials in recyclable lot will make the entire batch non-recyclable or produce poor quality yield. Hence both materials need to be segregated exclusively.

Author: Kartik Mehta
CTO - Saral Designs

Kartik is a graduate of Engineering Design department of IIT-Madras and is the co-founder of Saral Design Solutions pvt ltd. He has designed and commercialized world’s first decentralized sanitary napkin manufacturing unit. He is a winner of the National Entrepreneurship Award 2016 by Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Winner of ASME ISHOW Global 2017 for hardware led social innovations, Winner of Outlook India Innovation 2019 award by BCH & EDANA for best innovation in personal hygiene industry in India.
Prior to co-founding Saral Designs, he had designed special purpose packaging machines, filed patents for two devices and has showcased his products in Brunel Design show, London. He has also been selected as one of the delegates approved by Dr. Shashi Tharoor to represent Indian contingent at Kairos Global Society, New York.

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