Incinerators are rare and can have unpleasant environmental impacts if used at scale. Also, burning menstrual cloth is thought to bring on infertility. Burying pads is time-consuming and modern sanitary plastic-filled pads can take up to 800 years to decompose. In a study in Bihar, nearly 60 per cent of women simply chucked their used pads and cloths into fields and roadsides.
