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Project title

Awareness raising tools to address avoidable plastic waste arising from sanitary products and disposable nappies

Primary Funding Agency

Environmental Protection Agency

Co-Funding Organisation(s)

n/a

Lead Organisation

Voice of Irish Concern for the Environment (VOICE)

Lead Applicant

Abigail O'Callaghan Platt

Project Abstract

The objective of the project is to develop and pilot programmes to promote and raise awareness of reusable sanitary items to an Irish audience. The project will focus on two aspects; 1) menstrual items, and 2) nappies and wipes. Disposable sanitary products such as menstrual products, wipes and nappies, are part of the linear economy, however there are underutilised circular economy options already available. A menstruating person uses between 12,000 and 16,000 menstrual items in their life, while the average baby uses between 4,000 and 4,500 nappies before potty training at roughly 2.5 years. The aim of the project is to promote these reusable alternatives through a mixture of awareness raising and incentivisation, as well as identifying perceived barriers and examining the messaging around the benefits of reusable sanitary products. The target audiences for the programmes are teen and young adults for the menstrual programme, and parents of newborns for the nappies and wipes programme. Following a review of international campaigns and a series of focus groups examining barriers, opportunities and messaging around reusable sanitary items in Ireland, promotional and awareness raising programmes will be developed for an Irish audience. The reusable menstrual items promotion and awareness programme will be piloted in one secondary school and one third level institution. Through working with one secondary school in-depth we will determine reception to the pilot programme in different year groups. The school will be provided with workshops to various year groups and with the toolkit (including sample reusable period products, bathroom posters, short awareness raising animations, and a social media toolkit). Work will also take place with one third level institution on an in-depth level, including hosting a freshers week awareness event, establishing promotional material and a supply of reusable menstrual items on campus, delivering workshops to students, and delivering a pilot train the trainer course to sustainability reps. The pilot reusable nappy and wipes promotion and awareness programme will involve working with one local authority to develop an incentive scheme for the purchase of reusable nappies. This strategy to increase use of reusable nappies has been used in the UK (including Northern Ireland), Italy and Belgium. A voucher or discount code towards the cost of a cloth nappy starter kit will be trialled and will be distributed to new parents via public health nurses, La Leche League groups, and the Cloth Nappy Library. Following on from the pilot reusable nappy incentive scheme the project team and partner local authority will host a webinar, for local authorities and the waste regions, to provide an overview of the process of establishing and administering the scheme. The team will also produce a short, step by step How-To guide for local authorities, to allow them access to the information . While reusable sanitary items are readily available in Ireland, they are currently a niche market. This project aims to explore methods to unlock the potential uptake of reusable sanitary items and bring them further into the mainstream, facilitating a move towards a circular economy.

Grant Approved

�84,198.22

Research Hub

Green and Circular Economy

Research Theme

n/a

Start Date

31/03/2022

Initial Projected Completion Date

31/03/2023