Menstrual Cups: What’s Stopping Edinburgh University Students from Making the Switch?

Reusable menstrual products - think menstrual cups, cloth pads and period underwear - are exactly what they sound like: products you can wash and reuse. They’ve become synonymous with sustainability thanks to their extended life cycle and significant environmental and cost benefits. For instance, switching from tampons to a reusable menstrual product could save 7 kg of CO2 emissions annually, a 16x reduction in carbon footprint at just 10% of the cost. Yet, for the past century, disposable options, like single-use pads and tampons, have taken the spotlight, particularly in the Global North. At the University of Edinburgh, students can access menstrual cups for free as part of the institution’s commitment to providing free menstrual products, funded in part by the Scottish Government under the Period Products (Free Provision) (Scotland) Act 2021. 

Now, if menstrual cups are free and better for the planet, you’d expect students to be jumping to get their hands on one, right? Why not save climate change and your purse at the same time?! Are menstrual cups actually liked by menstruators? Easy to use? Comfortable? Why are some using them and others not? These are some questions that I have attempted to answer in my undergraduate geography dissertation exploring willingness to use reusable menstrual products in University of Edinburgh (UofE) students. The answers to these questions lie in a combination of cultural taboos, misinformation, infrastructure barriers, and deeply ingrained societal norms that dictate the ‘right way’ to deal with your period.  

One of the most common responses encountered during my research was simple confusion: What even are reusable menstrual products? Such ignorance towards reusables can be partly attributed to the menstrual product industry. I am sure most of us are familiar with Always, Tampax and BodyForm, to name a few. In the UK, these brands dominate the marketplace, and their success is due to the simple guise that their disposable products are ‘best’ at managing menstruation. Through paradoxical messaging which stresses menstruation as perfectly natural while also emphasising the need to keep it hidden, marketers produce a reliance on single-use products as a cheap, affordable and discreet solution to ‘take control’ of your period and maintain a kind of sanitised femininity. Within this neoliberal game, companies have found a way to make it profitable for women to be ashamed of their periods, commodifying menstrual silence.  

Despite the so-called ‘sexual revolution’, periods are still buried beneath societal discomfort. From a young age, girls are taught that any visible sign of menstruation, leaking, odor, or inconvenience, is shameful.  Take Superbad (2007), where Seth (Jonah Hill) retches with disgust when he realises the girl he was dancing with leaked on his trousers: “Someone perioded on my f****** leg?!” Suddenly, she is no longer an object of attraction, rather a subject of disgust. Breaking the menstrual silence is seen as a source of weakness, queerness, unattractiveness and inferiority. This cultural script is reinforced in a myriad of ways beyond just pop culture, and its stigma has real consequences.  

Reusables challenge notions of discretion and hygiene that have long been associated with disposable options. A menstrual cup, for instance, collects blood, which users must empty, rinse, and reinsert, directly confronting a process they’re conditioned to conceal. Some students, to ease their anxiety while wearing a menstrual cup, would layer multiple products at a time, ironically creating more waste in the process.  

Traditionally, puberty and sexual education use a medicalised narrative framing menstruation as biological inconveniences to be ‘managed’ rather than understood. It is no surprise then, that misconceptions flourish: fears that cups can cause infertility, break virginity, or affect having a ‘tight p****’ persist.   These myths continue to shape the unfamiliarity and resistance to reusables in UofE students. Hegemonic patriarchal narratives foreground female bodies as entities which serve others, leaving women with little freedom in their product choices. In an ideal world, menstrual education would detail the ins and outs of a wide range of products. Yet, this would demand a raw, de-stigmatised, and candid conversion surrounding women’s bodies. For too long, the dominant narrative has been one of concealment, one which continues to shape unfamiliarity to reusables in UofE spaces, despite availability. 

Imagine if you had to dispose of your used toilet paper outside the cubicle. You’re probably thinking: why on earth am I bringing that up? That’s disgusting! Why wouldn’t you be able to flush it?! It sounds absurd. Yet, for users of reusables at the University, that’s essentially what’s expected. Sinks are often outside toilet cubicles, creating barriers to cleaning products privately. You might ask, why can’t students just leave the cubicle to use the sinks? The answer is they can, and some do. But if the entire set up of a bathroom is centred around facilitating the secret, discreet, ‘hassle-free’ use of disposables, why would they bother? To expect students to do so without hesitation would be to ignore the intimacy with period blood and their perceived risk of societal judgement that this spatial layout demands. Both the prospect of being seen handling a menstrual cup by others and getting period blood over their hands was seen as a source of embarrassment, shame, and discomfort for students, inadvertently discouraging their use. The physical layout of most university bathrooms can be seen as creating an added layer of ‘blood work’ for students who use a reusable, mimicking the oppressive power of wider socio-cultural taboos.  

Even with free provision, menstrual cups aren’t always accessible. Supplies run out quickly, and many students don’t even know they’re available.   Meanwhile, disposable pads and tampons are everywhere! While this provision is amazing for addressing period poverty, the imbalance in supply reinforces the idea that disposables are the only right choice. This contrast does more than just limit access - it shapes perception. The result? A university culture where engaging in productive conversations around reusables is practically nonexistent.  

Importantly, there is not one universal experience. In the process of interviewing, I listened to many students recall positive experiences trying reusables for the first time at University. Peer encouragement, and having someone to lead by example, was critical in establishing positive experiences and perceptions of reusables. Increasingly so, Women’s Health social media accounts, ‘gURLs’, and student-associated bodies like Sanitree and Girl-Up, are empowering menstruators with the right knowledge to manage their periods without falling victim to misconceptions.  Choosing a reusable product becomes an act of resistance, challenging the stigma and shame that has long shaped period discourse.  

We’ve seen major shifts away from single use plastics, like plastic bags and water bottles, toward sustainability. Menstruation is personal and many are understandably hesitant to change their habits. The reality is it feels hypocritical for society to push for a sustainable consumption shift that predominantly burdens women.  If society wants a sustainable shift in period care, it must center lived experiences without guilt of pressure. True accessibility means offering genuine choice, informed understanding, and dismantling the shame around menstrual blood itself.