Millions of tampons thrown down UK toilets every single day

A staggering 2.4 million tampons are being flushed down toilets in the UK daily, leading to blocked sewers and environmental damage.

More than half of tampon users throw them down the toilet every single day of their period rather than binning them, according to data from phs Group.

It says urgent action is needed to convert flushers into ‘binners’ to stop more than 300,000 sewer blockages** in the UK each year costing some £100m to repair.

Flushing sanitary products down the toilet also causes environmental harm to rivers and waterways, and leads to 4.8 pieces of menstrual waste being found per 100m of beach cleaned on average.

Aston spoke to Clare Hughes from phs Group and Martha Silcott from Fab Little Bag.

Photo by Jan Antonin Kolar on Unsplash