A huge amount of energy is used globally to produce single-use menstrual products. This includes:

• Harvesting of raw materials: human energy, fossil fuels

• Manufacturing raw materials: electrical, thermal energy & fossil fuel energy

• Distribution and Transportation: fossil fuel energy

• Waste Management: thermal, chemical and electromagnetic energy

The following environmental impacts occur through the production and disposal of all menstrual products. This includes:

• Abiotic Depletion

• Fossil Fuel Depletion 

• Global

• Warming Potential

• Acidification 

• Eutrophication

• Waste

The main raw material used for the production of disposable menstrual products is cotton.

Other materials may include:

• Rayon fiber

• Polyester

• Polypropylene

• Paper pulp

• Polyethene

• Synthetic polymers

• Super absorbent polymers

• Bleach, optical brighteners

Abiotic depletion refers to the depletion of nonliving (abiotic) resources such as fossil fuels, minerals, clay, and peat.

Fossil fuel depletion. Fossil fuel depletion is the extraction of natural gas, oil and coal reserves at a rate higher than nature replenishes them.

Global warming potential. Global warming potential (GWP) is a measure of how much heat a greenhouse gas traps in the atmosphere up to a specific time horizon, relative to carbon dioxide.

Waste (or wastes) are unwanted or unusable materials which may pollute land or water ways.

Ocean acidification is the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth's oceans, caused by the uptake of carbon dioxide (CO. 2) from the atmosphere.

Excessive richness of nutrients in a lake or other body of water, frequently due to run-off from the land, which causes a dense growth of plant life such as algae blooms.