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More than 85 per cent of menstruators in Nepal currently lack access to healthy period products, meaning they often turn to unhealthy or unsustainable ways of managing menstruation instead. A long-standing stigma and lack of understanding around menstrual health makes it even harder for individuals to ask for and find what they need. For young people, not having access to safe and convenient products often means missing school during their periods, putting their longer-term education and professional opportunities at risk.

One Nepal-based non-profit Sparśa wants to tackle this in a sustainable way, with natural, banana-based pads that safely biodegrade, and a commitment to educating communities across the country about the importance of menstrual health. We sat down with Dipisha Bhujel, the co-founder and chairwoman of Sparśa, to learn more.

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Biodegradable banana pads

Beyond the social impact, periods also take their toll on the environment. Since the 19th century, when dedicated period care products first emerged, menstrual pads and tampons have evolved tremendously. Now, the majority of menstruators favour the disposable items we see on supermarket shelves, and although they’re extremely convenient, they’re also a huge source of plastic pollution – the average pad is up to 90 per cent plastic. With 800 million people around the world experiencing their periods every day, that adds up to enormous volumes of plastic waste destined for landfills and our oceans.

Dipisha tells us that for countries like Nepal, which lack adequate recycling infrastructure, the problem of period product waste is huge. “Even if there were menstrual campaigns done by other people here, they would always promote plastic pads. It creates another problem for which we don’t have a solution yet, particularly in schools in remote areas where the pads are just piled up.

“The motivation for us was that we needed to find a way to solve period poverty, but it has to be sustainable. It has to be healthy for the planet as well.“ Inspiration for Sparśa’s pads, which was established by the Nepali-European NGO NIDISI, came when another of the company’s co-founders was visiting a conference in the US, and heard about the possibility of making pads out of banana plants.

After receiving limited help from other organisations who’d pursued similar ideas, the Sparśa team decided they needed to do it themselves. “We had no idea if we were able to do it,” Dipisha explains. “We had to invent our own recipe. We had to design everything, from the business model to the machines by ourselves.” Because of these obstacles, Sparśa is committed to sharing its knowledge with other organisations, so that its banana pad process can serve as the blueprint for other projects around the world.

Banana trees can only produce one round of fruit in their lifetimes, so after every harvest, farmers must cut down the trees to make space for next year’s. According to Dipisha, this leaves behind 45 to 50 kilogrammes of bark fibres for every tree, a huge amount of waste that’s often either burnt or dumped. Luckily, all this waste provides a great resource.

Sparśa uses that banana fibre waste as the main raw material for its clean, compostable pads. The fibre is turned into the middle, absorbent pad layer, while the bottom layer is made from a locally sourced cornstarch bioplastic, and the top made out of non-woven cotton sourced from India. Committed to maintaining circularity, organic waste that’s left over in the process is turned into biofertiliser and sent back to the banana farmers, helping them avoid harmful and polluting chemical-based alternatives.

Empowering Nepal and menstrual equity

Money that’s generated by selling the clean, green pads goes back into running the company, making it “self-reliant and sustainable”, as Dipisha tells us. But wanting to take period health one step further, any additional profits Sparśa makes get directed into “menstrual health and hygiene education, and advocacy for women’s rights, which we have already been doing for the last four years.”

Before Sparśa, Dipisha had a background in promoting women empowerment and menstrual health advocacy and according to her, “there is so much stigma around menstruation here [in Nepal] (…) we have a lot of restrictions and practices that limit our rights to education, to freedom. We want to eliminate that.” One of the ways Sparśa does this is through its Ambassador Program, where the team trains 10 people under the age of 28, providing them with essential resources and education on menstrual health and hygiene that they can then bring back to their communities and spread awareness. The Program was launched this year, and will continue to recruit new cohorts annually.

“We want to approach the development work through a different lens,” Dipisha explains. “We believe that traditional development work is creating more dependency. Rather, we need to empower local people.” As well as empowering the local banana farmers and educating local young people, Sparśa also strives to provide economic empowerment and job opportunities to women from underprivileged backgrounds and indigenous communities.

The Iris Prize

The Iris Project, set up by Ben Goldsmith and Kate Rothschild in memory of their daughter Iris, was established to empower young innovators and help them scale their game-changing nature-based solutions. Last year, on behalf of Sparśa, Dipisha was awarded the Iris Stem Prize. According to Dipisha, the Prize – and more importantly, the support she’s had from the Iris Project team – has been transformational for Sparśa, especially considering the difficulties they’ve faced not only being a non-profit, but also being a non-profit led by young people.

Setting up the company and getting it off the ground has meant the team has needed to frequently approach the government for approval. “For me, as a young person, and a woman coming from an indigenous community it was always very hard, because most of the people in government come from privileged communities,” Dipisha explains. “People in the office in the ministry would not even look at me. They would not even give me the space. I used to feel so worthless and it made me question: what am I doing here? Why am I doing this? Is this even the right thing to be doing?“

Despite the difficulties in jumping through governmental hoops, including the obstacles non-profits like Sparśa face in accessing grants from outside Nepal and having them approved, the team has persevered. “We are young people,” says Dipisha. “But we know what we are doing.”

As well as the financing – which Sparśa used to develop its pad factory and biofertiliser recipe – the Iris Project provides its winner with vital support and mentoring to ensure the solution has everything it needs to thrive and scale. “I felt very grateful for the financial support,” says Dipisha. “But I think it has been more about the other kind of support that I have received through the Iris Project, mainly through my mentors.”

This support has been broad: from risk and mitigation training, which helped Dipisha understand the dangers their workers face around the machinery in their factories, to support in climate comms, which involved developing Sparśa’s logo and marketing materials. “The Iris Prize is more than just a financial grant for me. It has been a life-changing opportunity where I have gotten a community of people that really care about each other (…) they really care and you feel valued.”

Learn more about Sparśa.

Words: Matilda Cox