My Journey in Bali: Researching Biodegradable Menstrual Pads with Perfectfit

by Norah Moran - Bioengineering Student @ UCLA
Summer Internship at Perfectfit

I came to Perfectfit to be a part of their biodegradable menstrual pads project. While Perfectfit has great options for reusable pads, sometimes day to day life makes one want a single use option. Whether it be because of travel, ease of changing in a public restroom, the ability to borrow one from a friend, or more, a single use option is enticing.

Since Perfectfit has both its customers and the environment in mind, a biodegradable menstrual pad was the way to go. Over the last couple months I have been researching what makes a pad, what makes something biodegradable, and what options are currently on the market. Unfortunately in my research I found that most companies that say they are biodegradable are not actually 100% biodegradable. Generally this is because of the super absorbent polymers (SAPs) in the absorbent core of the pads which make them unable to completely degrade. This is why we have been focused on the qualities of pads with a pulp absorbent core and no SAPs.

I looked into many different menstrual companies in South Asia that are environmentally conscious. While they all had a great message about empowering women and protecting the environment, only a few were able to make a completely biodegradable option. Though those that were completely biodegradable were not available in Indonesia and would have a hard time expanding to the Indonesian market at the moment. So, we started looking into manufacturers in South Asia that would be able to produce a biodegradable pad, and we didn’t find any in Indonesia. Most companies we spoke with that would be able to manufacture these products are located in China, so after some calls with a few different companies, we found one who would be able to produce a fully biodegradable option for Perfectfit. 

Once we found some options from a manufacturer that was willing to make a pad that is completely biodegradable, we decided to test these against some environmentally conscious pads that are currently available in Indonesia. We wanted to know about how long it takes the pads to decompose and what is left of each of them at certain time points. I found that some common benchmarks for biodegradability are 12 days, 42 days, and 180 days. So we buried three sets of five different pads to be examined at each of these benchmarks and compared to each other. I also got to talk to Diana Ilyas from Go Forward in Indonesia who was able to offer some advice from her experience in biodegradable testing. She gave me some advice on setting up a test and what parameters to keep in mind.

We recorded initial observations such as weight, size, and shape, and will record these same parameters when collecting the pads after each time period so we can compare. From these tests we will be able to calculate the degree of degradation and degradation rates so that we can see how our potential products are performing compared to current market options. Check back here in 12, 42, and 180 days to hear about the results!

Do you have any company you think we should look into? Let us know in the comments below.