Abstract：
With ever-improving social and medical awareness about menstrual hygiene in India, the demand for sanitary napkins has increased significantly. The utilization of high-quality and environment-friendly raw materials to produce these pads is further supporting the growth of the market. However, with improving demand and usage, the need for proper disposal techniques becomes more relevant, since all of these pads get contaminated with human blood which makes them a biohazard and can cause significant damage to human health and the environment. One sanitary pad takes around 800 years to degrade naturally and the plastic and super absorbent polymers (SAPs) in sanitary pads are non-biodegradable and can take multiple decades to degrade. Waste management technologies such as pyrolysis, gasification, and resource recovery can be adopted to manage tons of sanitary waste. Currently, sanitary waste treatment mainly focuses on landfilling, incineration, and composting, where biohazard wastes are mixed with tons of solid waste. Disposable sanitary pads have a high carbon footprint of about 5.3 kg CO2 equivalent every year. Innovative solutions for sanitary pad disposal are discussed in the manuscript which includes repurposing of derived waste cellulose and plastic fraction into value-added products. Future aspects of disinfection strategies and value addition to waste cellulose recovered from napkins were systematically discussed to promote a circular economy.
摘要：
随着印度社会和医学对月经卫生的认识不断提高，对卫生巾的需求显着增加。利用高质量和环保的原材料来生产这些垫进一步支持了市场的增长。然而,随着需求和使用的改善，对适当处置技术的需求变得更加相关，因为所有这些垫子都被人体血液污染，这使得它们具有生物危害，并可能对人类健康和环境造成重大损害。一个卫生垫需要大约800年才能自然降解，而卫生垫中的塑料和超吸收聚合物（SAP）是不可生物降解的，可能需要几十年才能降解。废物管理技术，如热解，气化,可以采用资源回收来管理吨卫生废物。目前,卫生废物处理主要集中在填埋，焚化,堆肥，生物危害废物与数吨固体废物混合在一起。一次性卫生垫具有每年约5.3kgCO2当量的高碳足迹。手稿中讨论了用于卫生垫处理的创新解决方案，其中包括将衍生的废纤维素和塑料部分重新用于增值产品。系统讨论了消毒策略的未来方面以及从餐巾纸中回收的废纤维素的增值，以促进循环经济。
