We’re all always looking for ways to to reduce our impact on the environment. Menstrual Hygiene Day, on May 28, presents a great opportunity to do just that, thanks to the DivaCup.
Launched in 2003 by Francine Chambers and her daughter, co-founder and CEO, Carinne Chambers-Saini, Diva (the company) encourages customers to reduce their carbon footprint and join the hundreds of thousands of women globally recycling their menstrual cups and packaging, all while supporting the fight for menstrual and reproductive rights of women.
Canadian made and available in over 40 countries (including a whopping 65,000 North American retail outlets!), the DivaCup is a menstrual cup made from durable silicone that becomes more flexible with body heat. It’s eco-friendly (because it creates less waste than, say, single-use tampons or pads), cost-effective (cause it can be used again and again; its makers recommend changing it once a year), it offers up to 12 hours of protection (depending on your menstrual flow) and it’s BPA free, with no added chemcials, plastics or dyes (read: happy vagina).
Now, let’s talk about Diva’s incredible environmental impact (the good kind). In 2020/2021, the brand diverted over 1,855,881 waste products from landfill as a result of customers converting to the menstrual cup. In Canada alone, the average woman will use approximately 240 tampons a year. Multiply that by the 1.8 billion menstruating globally and the impact is immense.
Plus, in 2021, Diva diverted the use and waste of 3.6 million disposable menstrual products by donating more than 15,000 menstrual cups, which helped to serve over 180,000 periods worldwide. In fact, the company’s donated over 48,000 DivaCups, equating to over $1.9 million, serving 600,000, periods worldwide, and diverting a total of 12 million disposable period products from landfills in the last three years.
But that’s not all. Diva has partnered with TerraCycle to bring the first-ever menstrual cup recycling program to North America. TerraCycle takes traditionally non-recyclable materials, recycles them and turns them into something new. The easy, three-step program offers customers the chance to return used menstrual cups and DivaWipes packaging free of charge, using a pre-paid shipping label and any box they have available. The items are then ground into a crumb-like powder and given a new lease of life as flooring, playgrounds and athletic tracks for communities across the country. As of March 2022, over 1,008 DivaCups have been recycled with the partnership.
We’ll raise a DivaCup to that! —Noa Nichol
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