Characterization and Efficiency Test of Affordable and Ecofriendly Sanitary Pad Made of Natural Fibers from Enset
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Date
2020-12
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Sanitary pads are one of menstrual hygiene management (MHM) materials that are used by girls and women to absorb their menstruation. However, these products are mainly available in urban area and also expensive for the majority underprivileged girls of our country. Thus, most girls specially the rural girls are forced to use unhygienic and uncomfortable materials to deal with their period. Hence, these girls are forced to live stressful, uncomfortable and unsafe life. These result in a long chain of negative impacts on the health of our girls and women. On the other hand, the materials that are used to fabricate sanitary pads create environmental contamination during disposal.
This research aims at providing a better alternative to conventional sanitary pads using sustainable and convenient raw materials like cotton, Enset pulp and a bioplastic to make sanitary pads with a needed performance. By converting Enset fiber to pulp the major part of the sanitary pad, an absorbent core, is produced. Then, cotton fabric that is commonly known by the name of ‘Nethla’ is used as a top sheet during sample pad production and finally the bioplastic is used as the bottom layer to make sample sanitary pad.
Results showed that the sample sanitary pad meets all the required criteria such as absorbency, ability to withstand pressure after absorption, pH, wicking property, liquid striking property, fluid retention, disposability and physical parameters (i.e. pad length, width and thickness). Also the research revealed that the Enset pulp did not have antimicrobial activity. The cost estimation of the sample sanitary pad was done and the net cost for single pad production was found 0.85 birr.
As compared to conventional sanitary pads that are available in the local market, the pad designed in the current thesis is affordable, sustainable and ecofriendly with the potential to replace not only the pads that are imported from abroad but also the raw materials needed to produce them locally.
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Keywords
Sanitary pad, Enset pulp, Cotton fabric, Bioplastic, MHM