TAMPONS ARE BAD FOR OUT HEALTH, SANITARY TOWELS ARE BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT. SO, ASKS EMILY WILSON, WHY ARE WE IGNORING SAFE, ECO-FRIENDLY OPTIONS?

The British coastline is routinely littered with gruesome reminders of the world's multi-billion pound sanitary protection industry.

In a flush-it-and-forget-it culture, millions of used tampons and sanitary towels find their way out to sea with the raw sewage. Washing about in the shallows, they become a fertile breeding ground for microbes such as hepatitis A and polio.

Environmental campaigners say tampon applicators and the plastic backing from sanitary towels can harm dolphins, seals and turtles when they are mistaken for prey and swallowed, although it's impossible to say how common this is.

And then there are the implications for human health. Tampon packets carry warnings about toxic shock syndrome, a potentially lethal blood infection. But there might also be other, less obvious, safety issues. Chemicals such as dioxins, which are carcinogenic, and pesticides have been found in some products. They can be introduced during the bleaching process or, if the material used is cotton, on the farm. Questions have been asked in America about possible links between sanitary protection products and cervical cancer.

Manufacturers say that if such cancer-causing chemicals are present in their wares, they're present at vanishingly low concentrations, but, in an increasingly toxin-conscious world, many women are instinctively unhappy about the idea of stuffing chemical-laced wadding into their bodies.

Doctors say that the vaginal walls are remarkably efficient at absorbing such compounds and fibres form tampons can also be absorbed into the flesh, under the right conditions.

All this begs the question: why are we ignoring the eco-friendly and potentially safer options? And why have most women never even heard about them?

There is, for example, a re-usable alternative to tampons, known as the menstrual cup. It's a bell-shaped rubber contraption which is pushed up inside the body exactly like a tampon. Twice a day or so, depending on how heavily the woman bleeds, it has to be removed and washed out with warm water or a little soap. It costs £30.00, but it's meant to last 10 years.

On the Lonely Planet traveller website, where women with small rucksacks and limited resources take a keen interest in unusual sanitary protection options, one woman reports that her bathroom looked as if she had "slaughtered a pig in it" after she changed her menstrual cup for the first time. But she goes on to say that, with practice, it's easy and quick to use.

In America and Canada, tens of thousands of women use menstrual cups. Around 800 British women have bought them by mail order after hearing about them by word of mouth. This compares with the sale of 1.167 million tampons, 1,459 million towels and 813(sic) pantyliners each year in Britain alone.

Ruth Rosselson, 28, a journalist on Ethical Consumer magazine, has been using a menstrual cup for two years. "It didn't seem that easy to use at first, but once I's got used to it I was a complete convert," she says. "It's got me really into my body in way I hadn't expected - instead of pretending my period didn't exist. When I take it out I can see how much I've actually bled. I like that."

Menstrual cups - also known as keepers - were invented in America in the 1930s, at about the same time as tampons, according to the Museum of Menstruation website. They were hard and uncomfortable to use, and women were uncomfortable with the idea of putting their fingers inside themselves. Wartime rubber rationing then halted production, but, in various guises, they have been available in the States since the 1950s.

Irena Rodziewicz, who sells the modern version of the menstrual cup by mail order form her home in Bristol says there will always be a market for them, by they cannot compete against the commercial might of "sanpro" industry. British women spend more than £331 million each year on tampons, sanitary towels and pantyliners.

"Why sell a woman one item which can last a decade where can keep selling them umpteen items and make a filthy load of lucre?" she says "Who cars about polluting the planet as long as we're rich?"

The Women's Environmental Network, which recommends using reusable sanitary towels say a reluctance to discuss the nitty-gritty of menstruation is another major factor in the dominance of the big companies. The group says women remain ignorant of their options because of the "commercial colonisation of a topic that is still almost taboo."

It's undeniable that menstruation is one of the few subjects many women are still embarrassed by. Some admit they would rather discuss sex or death with their children than periods.

In the past, menstruating women have been accused of curdling milk, rusting iron, blunting knives and bringing bad luck. Ideas about menstruation being unclean run through Christian, Jewish and Muslim teaching. It has been seen both as the root of all female neurosis and a symbol of sexuality which should be contained.

Television advertisements for tampons - which use blue liquid, rather than blood compound the problem. Women are still implicitly encouraged to be discreet and to hide their periods - which is presumably part of the reason why an estimated 74% of tampon-users flush, rather than using a bin. Around 25 per cent of sanitary towel users also flush.

"This is about lack of knowledge and something that's difficult to talk about," says Ann Link, waste prevention coordinator for WEN. "If you can't talk about something, you can't explore interesting possibilities."

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