Period poverty affects nearly 500 million women and girls across the globe resulting in inequality in economic outcomes and lower quality of life. A key tool to reduce this inequality is access to (disposable) menstrual pads. However, the majority of disposable menstrual pads are made using materials with a large environmental footprint and rely on complex international supply chains which reduces access by those who need these products the most.
To build better products we need better materials. Plants represent an abundant and relatively untapped source of materials that can be used to make products important for the quality of life available to more people while also being environmentally sustainable.
Plant pad is a project which aims to use the power of people to discover the potential of plants to enable the construction of an environmentally sustainable menstrual pad using locally available biomass anywhere in the world.
Our current data can be placed into scatter plots comparing the various attributes from our plant material database. There are currently X materials in the database with Y measured properties. Click on any datapoint to see more information.
If you have a plant or fiber you’d like to add to the database, please read through the protocols and upload your data using the form link below. Thank you!
We have various levels of data collection for different users - from beginners to advanced. Upon registering to upload data, you’ll be asked which level you’ll be uploading to and the questions will adjust accordingly. See the details below. Happy experimenting!
