Eco-Hazard of Sanitary Pads

The disposal and recycling of sanitary pad, which is used by women for private personal hygiene, is at the center of a raging open controversy in Pune, Maharshtra. According to the estimates, the city's female population generates about 10 million used sanitary pads weighing around 140 tonnes, per month, posing a major challenge to dispose them off safely without causing health or eco-hazards. Conservancy group in Pune is now protesting against handling and disposing of sanitary pads and even baby or adult diapers which are thrown into trash bins.

For the first time in India, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has demanded that sanitary pad manufacturers must include an identifiable disposal bag with each sanitary pad to eliminate environmental and health hazards arising out of its disposal.  Joint Municipal Commissioner Suresh Jagtap said that in January, Mayor Vaishali Bankar and Municipal Commissioner Mahesh Pathak had invited some of the companies for a meeting to hammer out a solution. But no company representative turned up.

A non-government organisation - Solid Waste Collection and Management (SWaCH) - decided to take some direct action.  On March 8, International Women's Day, they collected bundles of used sanitary pads and returned them to the companies which manufactured them.

The move worked. Officials from some of the top companies in the business like Johnson & Johnson, Proctor & Gamble, Hindustan Unilever and Kimberly Clarke Lever met the PMC authorities in April and assured a solution within three months. This would include how to dispose of the used sanitary pads, whether they should be segregated as wet or dry waste, whether the products are bio-degradable or not and whether they are recyclable or not.  But, since then three months have passed but they have not acted in the matter

In a unique public-private-partnership initiative of the PMC, SWaCH, was given a five-year contract in 2008 to collect household waste and dispose them off in a safe and environment friendly manner. Accordingly, SWaCH's 2,300 waste-picker members, including 300 men, collect all waste door-to-door from 400,000 homes, or nearly 53 percent of all Pune's houses.  The PMC pays them between Rs.10 and Rs.30 per household and the rest of the money the waste-pickers earn from disposing of the waste collected after segregating it as plastic, metal, paper, cloth, glass, biodegradable waste and the like.

However, the biggest complaint from SWaCH members is handling sanitary pads and diapers which they consider insulting as well as a major health hazard.

According to the Extended Producers Responsibility under the Plastics Management & Handling Rules, 2011, it is the manufacturers' responsibility to ensure that they are responsible for their products till the very end after they are used. It is know n that the unaware masses simply drop them in dustbins or flush them in toilets, with the risk of choking the drainage systems. A sanitary napkin comprises over 90 percent crude oil plastic and the rest is chlorine-bleached wood or cotton pulp.

The usage of sanitary pads is growing and becoming popular even in rural areas and so it was imperative for the manufacturers to evolve a solution to the looming crisis.  SWaCH has made a small beginning by manufacturing tiny, easily identifiable yellow bags with a string, sold at Re.1 per piece to some of the households they service.  They are made by retired waste-pickers who have no other source of income. We are able to supply around 20,000 per month, while the actual requirement is staggeringly high.

Incidentally, the PMC-SWaCH initiative has been supported by other NGOs like the Centre for Environment & Education, Stree Mukti Sanghatana, Parisar and Janwani, as also the state government.

A 2011 survey by AC Nielsen, "Sanitary protection: Every Woman's Health Right", revealed only a 12 percent usage of sanitary napkins in India, among the lowest in the world.

However, SWaCH estimates that the number of used sanitary pads in Pune would be around half a million a month, based on the national average. According to estimates arising from the survey, nearly 36 million Indian women use sanitary napkins every month and at an average 12 per month per woman, it amounts to 432 million weighing 9,000 tonnes. 

Considering that this is the prelude to the known problem other cities of India would be facing soon, the local government and NGO should regulate this eco-hazard on priority unless it becomes a unmanageable problem.

Changing face of E-Commerce

The concept of online stores or e-commerce market place has matured over the passage of time with the advent of Internet. The virtual stores are turning out to be the business model for the millennium. As per the general perception, the pace with which the e-commerce is growing, it might outpace the business of physical stores one day. However, the recent report published by Forrester suggests that the presence of location of a physical store online enhances the total sales of the online stores. The estimated sales value of physical stores alone is calculated to be the 45% of the total sales value.

In general, the franchisee and franchiser relationship in the online business is maintained by the constant flow of information for the availability and replenishments of goods and services by a concrete enterprise resource planning and a supply chain tool. This tool enables franchiser to know the inventory status of the franchisee once they update their sales data regularly. Subsequently franchiser can plan to replenish the goods and materials in the franchisee’s stores if it has come down to a minimum storage level. All this franchiser can do by monitoring the data of all the franchisee stores because all their data are stored in the central server or monitoring server administered by the franchiser.

The location of different franchisers in different region is aimed to cater the need of the customer by shipping to reach the goods and materials faster with minimum turn around time of 24 hours. The encouragement of buying online largely is because of the great ranges of choices and heavy discounts. No heavy operating cost involve on maintaining the outlets and retail establishments, make e-commerce a profitable proposition for the customers.

As the volume of sales grow, the e-commerce company benefits enormously by selling virtually online with operating and shipping stores at different locations. The mode of reaching goods to the customer remains on shipping by courier in minimum time.

The recent trend which allows the customer to fetch the materials directly from the physical stores at the same price makes huge savings on shipping and handling and in turn increases the profits of the online stores. In the bargain franchisee, franchiser and customer are in benefit.

Franchisers sees the greater sales volume, franchisee makes a cost savings by handling and shipping and customer gets the goods and materials faster without any hassles.

Think of a scenario, Mr. Murthy is a book lover and day after tomorrow happens to be his son’s birthday. As a gift, he wants to presents his son a full set of R K Narayan’s book which is available on www.flipkart.com at 30% discounts rate with payment on arrival. But the minimum shipping time required is 3 days and Mr.Murthy is not sure if he places the order it will be delivered to his son on his birthday. Ironically, the flikart store is located a kilometer away from Mr.Murthy’s house and eventually he passes the stores everyday while going to his office.

If the flipkart allows Mr.Murthy to pay and pick the books from the stores, he would be able to ensure that his son gets the birthday gift what he planned; in addition to that he makes a cost savings too. Therefore, the current model of adding physical stores location online and allowing customers to fetch goods and materials directly helps e-commerce grow their business at a faster rate and maximize their profits.