Since 2016, Natracare has proudly partnered with City to Sea, a campaigning organisation working with communities, businesses, and activists to turn the tide on plastic pollution. Together we’ve worked to shift consumer behaviours, break down period stigmas, and make plastic-free periods more accessible. Through initiatives like Plastic Free Periods campaign and educational programs like Rethink Periods, we’ve made significant strides in raising awareness and promoting eco-friendly menstrual choices.
This is a guest blog by Gabrielle Kuzak from City to Sea.
Celebrating 3 years of Partnership
Natracare have been working with environmental charity City to Sea since 2016, tackling the issue of hidden plastic in menstrual products and helping people have plastic free periods. It was a natural fit from the start, with a shared mission to end period stigmas and address marginalised voices in period narratives, and to make language as inclusive as possible when talking about periods. The latest partnership came about through 1% for the Planet, which sees 10p from every pack of Natracare plastic-free applicator tampons sold in the U.K. going to City to Sea to support their education, lobbying, and campaigning around plastic in menstrual products.
Who is City to Sea?
City to Sea is an environmental charity on a mission to make refill and reuse accessible for everyone. By developing upstream solutions to single use, we’re helping keep our oceans free from plastic in the future. We unite businesses, NGOs, and policymakers to raise awareness and solve plastic-related issues, and help organisations design lasting initiatives to stop plastic pollution at the source.
Our creative campaigns inspire everyday activists, communities and businesses to act for the oceans, including our award-winning Plastic Free Periods campaign which aims to make period plastic a thing of the past. We believe that whoever you are, wherever you live, you should have access to affordable reusable and plastic free period products.
The Plastic Free Periods campaign
Since we launched the campaign in 2017, we’ve been raising awareness of the hidden plastics in period products, promoting plastic-free alternatives and empowering users to consider how they dispose of their products. Thanks to Natracare’s support since 2016, we’ve been campaigning to make reusable and plastic-free period care more accessible and affordable by lobbying and engaging government, brands, retailers and other key stakeholders such as the NHS, and have created long-lasting and meaningful behaviour change around eco-friendly menstrual choice and flushing behaviours.
How We’re Changing Consumer Behaviour About Period Products
Together, Natracare and City to Sea are stopping plastic from menstrual products from ending up in our waste stream every year. Consumer awareness of the Plastic Free Periods campaign is rising, from less than 10% of consumers at the start of the decade, to 43% this year.
Of those aware of the Plastic Free Periods campaign:
- 45% were encouraged to try a reusable period product, 32% to try a plastic-free disposable period product, and 26% to stop using plastic period product.
- It also showed change in behaviour outside of choosing periods, with 37% motivated to talk to friends and family about plastic-free alternatives for periods, 29% to stop flushing period products down the toilet, and 23% to change the language they use when talking about periods.
- 49% of respondents were aware that switching to reusable period products could be cost saving.
- 54% of respondents are aware that big brands and own brands contain a significant amount of plastic in the products themselves.
- More than half of respondents are concerned about how the ingredients used by big brand tampons and pad/liners might affect the environment (55%) and their health (57%).
- The survey also showed change in behaviour relating to disposal of period products: 70% put them in the bin, 11% flush them in the toilet and 11% compost them.
Events to make you think
City to Sea has worked with Natracare on two inspiring and thought-provoking panel events. The first, on Menstrual Health Awareness Day 28th May 2021, a panel discussion event about the menstrual experiences amongst the disabled community, following a survey which found that two in every five people with a disability are dissatisfied with the period products they use.
The following year we collaborated again on “This Could Turn Toxic: The effects of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals in period products on our health and the environment”, an online panel event streamed via YouTube with Natracare’s founder Susie Hewson amongst other experts from the period health and sustainability sector discussing Endocrine Disrupters from period plastic and the effects that these have on both our health and the environment. Both events provoked fascinating discussion and raised awareness of important, yet little-known issues.
Product Placement
In 2021, when City to Sea teamed up with environmental research organisation Darwin200 to investigate plastic pollution around the coasts of the British Isles, we took over Natracare’s Instagram stories during Plastic Free July to highlight the beauty of our coastlines but also the devastating plastic pollution we witnessed along the way. We also brought Natracare products on board for the crew members to use on their journey.
Since our partnership begun, Natracare has donated products for our Rethink Periods demonstration boxes, supporting our free, award-winning period education programme which aims to reinvigorate period education across primary and secondary schools. Rethink Periods was designed to empower young people with up to date and accessible information to make informed choices about their periods, understand the environmental impact of periods, dispel myths and social taboos and tackle period inequality head on. This programme has now trained over 1,500 teachers and nurses, reached over 211,000 students and resulted in 86% of teachers changing their language to be more gender-inclusive and lessen period stigma.
#BeKind and beyond
We’re delighted to be supporting Natracare’s #BeKind campaign, encouraging kindness to our bodies, the planet and each other. On 13th November, World Kindness Day, Natracare did an Instagram takeover on City to Sea’s channels to spread the word about their #BeKind campaign and encourage our followers to make choices that are kinder to both their bodies and the planet.
Together, City to Sea and Natracare have achieved incredible results in raising awareness of the problem of plastic in period products, the impact on our health and the environment, and changing consumer behaviours around product choice and flushing. We’ve loved working in partnership with Natracare and can’t wait to see what more we can achieve together in the future! Get in touch to find out more about our partnership!
