Earth Day 2024: Nushu Impact Report

This Earth week, we celebrate that small numbers can make a big impact!

Before we get into our very first Impact Report, here’s some context on menstruators in India:

💁🏽‍♀️ There are 325 Million menstruating women in India

📝 Of which 121 Million women use pads (that's only 37.2%)

📅 On average, women use 12 pads every month

🩸 Women menstruate for roughly 40 years

Add all that up and you get 🌎 17.4B pads disposed of ANNUALLY! 🌎

What Happens in the Landfills?

So - because most pads are made up of 90% plastic, they take 500-800 years to decompose.

During these 500+ years, the disposed pads emit:

Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) 🧪
CO2 & other greenhouse gases ⛽️
Leachate (toxic liquid waste) that could contaminate groundwater if not properly managed ☠️

The Nushu Impact

We launched our period underwear in September 2023. Over the last 8 months, we’ve worked tirelessly to impact the way menstrual care is approached in India. While we've found a solution that combines efficiency, comfort AND sustainability, we’ve converted only a fraction of pad-using menstruators so far.

Our current user base will prevent 8.3L of pads from being disposed of in the next 2 years. (Each Nushu underwear can be reused for 2 years).

If they continued using Nushu for the rest of their menstrual years, the number of pads prevented from being disposed of, could reach a total of 🚨1.03CR🚨.

Carbon Emissions:

Using disposable sanitary pads results in roughly 8.9kg (Check out the research here) of carbon emissions per year, per user.

Therefore, over a span of ~40 years, each woman will contribute approximately 360 KG of CO2 emissions to their carbon footprint, just by using disposable pads.

Our users will menstruate for another 25 years (on average).

So, if they continue to use Nushu Period Underwear, each of them will prevent at least 222KGs of carbon emissions.

And collective impact made by our user base? 6.8L KGs of Carbon emissions! 🤩

👉 Stating this again: We’ve converted only a fraction of pad-using menstruators so far!

Think of the impact we could have as we continue to expand our reach.🌱

To all our customers & users – THANK YOU FOR TRUSTING US!🤍

We are passionate about continuing to serve you with better menstrual care for the rest of your life.

Sustainability is not a destination, it’s a journey 🌎

Happy Earth Day!

Love,

Team Nushu

Committed to transforming lives, one period underwear at a time.

Resources: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921344919303179

To know more about our product, and the materials we use, please visit our sustainability page for in depth details.