PSA: There’s a lot more plastic in our period products than we thought

"An average woman uses 11,000 tampons in her lifetime."

It's fair to say that female health, in general, is an underserved market. There's a huge amount of work that still needs to be done and one Irish company is committed to, not only opening up the conversation around women's health, but educating women on what they're putting into their bodies. On the latest episode of the Her Podcast, we're catching up with the women behind Riley, a subscription service for all your organic period needs. Riley is a female-founded and people-focused brand that believes women deserve a stress-free period. Period. The idea was born when the three founders - Aine Kilkenny, Fiona Parfrey and Lauren Duggan - were catching up during one of our many lockdowns when an unexpected period disrupted the evening. The rest, as they say, is history. Fiona and Lauren joined us in studio to talk through the company that has been making serious waves in the 5 months since its inception. Listen to the episode in full below:   The company is not only focused on taking the stress out of periods but it's also committed to ending plastic pollution and period poverty. All of the products are compostable, they shared with us some of the shocking statistics around plastic pollution and period products:

"What we found was an average woman uses 11,000 tampons in her lifetime that's equal to 5500 plastic bags, so amongst us, it was over 16,000 plastic bags which is crazy! It made sense to make a product that is not contributing to this and that is compostable and that wouldn't end up in a landfill."

Riley tampons and pads are made from 100% organic cotton meaning that they don’t contribute to the 1 in 5 plastics found in our oceans that are from period products. Listen to the full episode with Lauren and Fiona here.