The menstrual poverty It affects millions of women around the world, meaning they do not have access to feminine hygiene products such as sanitary pads, tampons or menstrual cups, a situation that Stanford researchers want to change by creating plant-based sanitary pads that will reduce their cost and thus improve access.
And Stanford researchers have designed an open-source process to convert sisal fibers (fibers from the leaves of some agaves, native to Mico) into absorbent material for menstrual pads, creating an opportunity for local and sustainable manufacturing of these hygiene products that many communities need.
For menstruating people, access to affordable and hygienic menstrual products is a necessity. Studies estimate that 500 million people (women, transgender and non-binary individuals) do not have access to the facilities and products they need to manage their period.
Manu Prakash, an associate professor of bioengineering at Stanford, and his collaborators have developed a way to turn sisal plant fibers into a fluffy, absorbent material for menstrual pads. And because it's an open-source process, it could help small manufacturers use locally sourced materials to create affordable, high-quality menstrual products for their communities.
“To open up access to local manufacturing, you have to think about where the raw materials are coming from,” Prakash says. In Kenya in particular, “it turns out that sisal is absolutely incredible.”
According to work recently published in Communications Engineering According to Nature, a critical component of a menstrual pad is the