PAD

About

A menstrual hygiene product that retains factors of comfort from sanitary napkins, while being sustainable and biodegradable.

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Details

PURPOSE

Created as a class project, where the prompt was to choose a product that caused high levels of pollution and redesign them as something sustainable.

Contribution

User studies, concept generation and development, material selection, rendering, detailed designing, usage diagrams.

INSPIRATION

Indian women primarily use sanitary napkins while on their period. However, this generates very high quantities of non-biodegradable waste every month. The product created to combat this issue was the menstrual cup, but most rural and semi-urban Indian women are too afraid and orthodox to use an internal product. Also, people who have been through sexual abuse could associate insertion with trauma, and be hesitant to use cups. I realised that this leaves a blank space to fill.

GOAL

My goal was to create a product that is effective in preventing leaks while also being comfortable to use, and sustainable in the long run.

USer study

36 people answered a survey about the products they used while on their period. All 36 responders used sanitary napkins, and cited their reasons for choosing them as, mainly, comfort and the physical and emotional ease of use. Most responded that they had only ever used sanitary napkins and hence were most comfortable using them

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insights

  • Pads tend to shift or fill during use, causing leakage.

  • Users often get rashes while using a pad.

  • Disposal of a pad can be a messy and tedious process.

directions

  • Ensuring that the pad stays in place for the duration of use.

  • Preventing leakage.

  • Softening the contact surface to prevent rashes.

  • Simplifying the disposal process.

OBJECTIVE

To develop a design for an external menstrual hygiene product which prevents or reduces occurances of leakage, are longer lasting, with a simple and clean method of disposal, and which is more sustainable overall, with a reduced Carbon footprint and higher recycleability.

EXPLORATION

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MATERIALS

DIMENSIONS

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USAGE

Description

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This product contains:

  • A use-and-throw sanitary napkin manufactured from wheat cellulose and cotton material, with wrapping made of paper.

  • A long-term-use silicone backing pad.

  • A long-term-use zip-lock baggy to carry the pad and extra napkins.

environmental safety

The sanitary napkin and the primary and secondary packaging are made entirely of bio-degradable materials. The silicone pad and cover are reusable for years at a stretch, so there is zero regular plastic disposal arising from using these sanitary napkins.

Experience

This design of the sanitary napkin ensures that issues due to leakage are drastically reduced, Also, disposal becomes cleaner and safer with a much larger wrapper provided, preventing the need to carry extra material such as newspaper to dispose a used pad, as is the usual practice in India.