**Why Reusable Period Care is the Only Real Solution to Period Poverty**

5 min readMar 16, 2022

Saalt Cup donation recipients of WISER School, Kenya

Saalt was founded with the vision of making cleaner, more sustainable period care accessible to everyone. And we mean everyone. Period poverty is an urgent issue that has far-reaching impacts, from girls’ educational access to a country’s GDP.

We believe long-lasting reusable products, like our Saalt period cups and period underwear are the answer to ending period poverty for good. That’s why we’re on a mission to get them into as many hands as we possibly can.

What is period poverty?

Of the 800 million people who menstruate across the globe, 500 million of them (over 62%) live in period poverty, which means they lack access to safe and reliable period care. This causes people with periods to miss work and school every month.

Think about it. Let’s say you started your period today, but you don’t have any way to care for your period. Would you feel comfortable going out in public to go to school or work?

Without accessible period care, people with periods start to get resourceful and use things like banana leaves, old cloth, bits of mattress pad, paper torn from school books, or even soil or ash (anything that absorbs) to manage their periods. As you can imagine, these options are far from reliable, so some girls opt to stay home from school during their periods and eventually get so behind that they drop out entirely. School dropout rates skyrocket as soon as girls hit puberty age. In Uganda, 91% of girls enrolled in primary school, but by secondary school, only 22% of girls are enrolled. In rural India, only 1 in 100 girls reaches the 12th grade.

In some cases, access to period care can be a matter of life or death.

According to a 2016 survey, 80% of women in India cite that the reason they use alternative methods like rags and leaves to manage their periods is that their household can’t afford period care products. 98% of these women are reusing the scrap cloth and other material they find as an alternative to pads, tampons, or other period care methods. This reuse can become dangerous over time. Women in India who use alternative methods that aren’t hygienic are 70% more likely to experience infections like urinary tract infections, which can be fatal if not treated expediently or properly.

Period care is a matter of dignity, confidence, education, financial independence, economic contribution and yes, even a matter of life or death.

So what’s the solution?

Many organizations try to tackle the period poverty problem by donating disposable products to developing economies and communities in poverty. It’s a well-intended effort, but in reality, it only covers people for one month’s cycle, or until program funding runs out. The unintended byproduct of disposables in countries that lack infrastructure for waste management is menstrual waste mounting in rural schoolyards with no solution for disposal outside of those schools fortunate enough to have an incinerator.

We champion reusable cloth pads as a far more economical solution that has made great strides for period progress. In fact, Saalt has funded workforce development programs that employ women in developing economies to create reusable pads and school uniforms for girls through our friends at Style Her Empowered (SHE). However, when you hear of young girls, like SHE program students in Togo, who can’t afford basic underwear to place the pads into, you realize there’s still room for more innovation.

Why Saalt products are the answer to ending period poverty

At Saalt, we believe long-lasting reusable products, like our Saalt period cups and period underwear with built-in absorbency are the answer to ending period poverty for good. Both Saalt Cups and Saalt Wear take minimal water to clean and are wearable for 8 to 12 hours, depending on a person’s individual cycle. Saalt Cups last for 10 years and Saalt Wear for as long as three years, making them an incredible intervention for period poverty, while providing safe and reliable options for both inserted and non-inserted period care to meet age and culturally appropriate needs. One product can take a girl from middle school through college and enable her earning power to be more than ten times what it would have been if she dropped out during puberty.

Saalt Wear donation recipients from Her International, Nepal

In some communities, period underwear is really the only answer.

Period underwear is easy to use, comfortable, doesn’t break societal norms like inserted products can, nor does it require any education to use. As a bonus, it ensures girls have access to underwear, something many are lacking around the world.

But don’t take our word for it. Let’s let those who have tried Saalt products speak for themselves: