The tampon shortage means more than just a bunch of empty shelves. Period poverty was already a problem in the US and things just got worse.
If you’ve been baffled by the holes in the shelves your favorite tampons once inhabited, rest assured, you’re not losing it. Time Magazine reported earlier this month that due to supply chain issues caused by COVID-19, the United States is facing a national shortage of tampons. The prices of materials like cotton, which tampons are made of, have skyrocketed, making the tampon production process far more strenuous.
Procter and Gamble has chosen to respond to the shortage by increasing prices—last week, Bloomberg reported that the average price of a pack of tampons has increased by 9.8%, while the average price of pads has increased by 8.3%. This is a deeply consequential decision, seeing as many unhoused Americans have few options for menstruation but the tampon.
ADVERTISEMENT These price increases will not be minor frustrations for many Americans. Already, they are greater than that—a lack of access to menstrual products has debilitated American women since long before the tampon shortage. According to The Journal of Global Health Reports, ⅔ of the 16.9 million low-income menstruators in the United States could not afford menstrual products last year.
ADVERTISEMENT Menstrual hygiene nonprofits—such as Helping Women Period, which provides period products to menstruators at no cost—are an important method for reducing period poverty and helping low-income people better manage their periods. Now, even that looks disheartening. From January to June of 2021, over 445,000 tampons were donated by nonprofits—in 2022, just over 213,000 have been donated in the same timespan. This isn’t because the amount of tampons needed has halved in one year.
Now, more than ever, it’s essential to support organizations like Helping Women Period. I Support the Girls is a great place to look if you have any unused period products, or even unused undergarments—they provide free period products and underwear to homeless people around the world. There’s also Period, which donates products to marginalized communities across the U.S. They run out of products quickly because there’s such high demand, so giving your unused products to them is a big help.
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