Fab Little Bag

What is it?
 

The FabLittleBag is a discreet and hygienic way to dispose of your used tampons and sanitary products. It is a small, sturdy, biodegradable plastic bag that features two loops so you can use it with one hand.

The bag is made of 35% organic material, currently sugar cane waste although hopefully it could be made from corn starch in the future.

It comes in a bathroom pack which you can keep at home in your own bathroom – perfect if you share a bathroom with others – and you can get a refillable pack which fits in your handbag and can hold up to five FabLittleBags.

Flushing vs. Binning

When it comes to tampons are you a flusher or a binner? In the UK approximately 60% of us flush and 40% of us bin – that amount of sanitary products going down the loo can’t be good for sewage systems or the environment!

Martha at FabLittleBag divides the flushers into three categories – Determined Flusher, Guilty Flusher and Gobsmacked Flushers. The determined flushers with flush their tampons for the convenience and won’t worry about potential blockages or the environemtnal impact. Guilty flushers know that it’s not the right thing to do but will flush nonetheless. Finally the gobsmacked flushers are those who genuinely think that is the correct way to dispose of tampons.

Why should I use it?

There are time in your life when you may find yourself in a bathroom without a bin – whether in a friend’s home or a public toilet – or maybe the bin is open without a lid and you don’t really want to put your used tampon in there. In these cases you’re likely to just flush it, but that choice can be bad for the environment or can cause all sorts of plumbing problems.

It’s true you could wrap your tampon in a wad of toilet roll, but really that depends on if there is enough left and again it’s not really an environmentally friendly option to waste so much. Or maybe you think nappy sacks are a better choice because they are incredibly cheap, but then these take hundreds of years to start to degrade – as opposed to the 12-18 months it takes for the FabLittleBag to degrade!

Water companies collectively spend about £88m on blockages caused mainly by flushing non-flushables such as tampons, nappies, condoms, cotton buds, razors etc. With over 10m tampon users in the UK, and 60% of those flushing tampons, there are about 1.6bn tampons being flushed into our sewers, either getting stuck or ending up in rivers, oceans and even on our beaches!

How do i use it?

Simply slip your fingers into the loops, open the bag, put in your tampon, remove the sticky strip and then seal the bag – it couldn’t be easier!

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