Beth Howell
Beth has been writing about the environment and climate change for over four years now – with her work being featured in publications such as The BBC, Forbes, The Express, Greenpeace, and in multiple academic journals.
Founded by entrepreneurs Jennifer Eden and Gaby Alves, South California-based Tampon Tribe provides
high-quality menstrual hygiene products made from 100% GOTS and ICEA-certified organic cotton.
Its strict international standards ensure complete purity at all levels. But our personal favorite part? All of its products are 100% plastic-free and wrapped in zero-waste packaging, with a fierce mission to transform the period product industry.
The brand has committed to recovering 2,500 pounds (lb) of ocean-bound plastic with us which makes Tampon Tribe officially Plastic Neutral+.
To get a better idea of Gaby and Jennifer's motivations, we had a little chat. Here's what they had to say.
Q. Why did you start Tampon Tribe?
A. We had been working together in Beijing, China for quite some time, and we found ourselves in Los Angeles in a pretty fortunate situation where we got to decide what to do next in our lives and our careers.
And we thought we would combine a couple of our passions: environment, sustainability, and women’s health.
We were horrified with the amount of plastic waste on the beaches in LA and at the same time, we noticed a huge lack in the product availability of organic period products.
So we started investigating what kind of business we could create, that would combine both of these things... and came up with a plastic-free, organic, and ICA-certified, sustainable menstrual product.
Q. What is your favorite memory of the ocean?
A. Jennifer: I grew up in Australia on the beaches, so the sea has been part of my life since I was a tiny baby and the ocean for me is everything in my life, I have the best memories of it.
A. Gaby: The thing I love doing is diving into the ocean and lying on the ocean floor and looking up and seeing the sky through the ocean and all the lights that come through.
And that motivates us because we are pretty fortunate to have experienced super clean oceans in a lot of parts of the world and so it's pretty devastating to see otherwise now with all the plastic waste lying around. We saw beaches where nearly 80% of the sand was just covered in plastic and rubbish. And that was shocking.
Q. What does sustainability mean for your business?
A. We approach sustainability holistically. When we were starting our company, we looked at a sustainable approach for every aspect of it: from sustainably farmed organic cotton for our products to using recycled materials with low carbon footprints for our refill packaging, to limiting transportation times.
And just being completely plastic-free was huge for us because we think sustainability is the only way forward for a company. We work very hard to make sure everything we do adheres to that, even when it comes to our staff: do they need to travel to the office? Can they do what they do from where they are?
Partnering with CleanHub and supporting these great organizations that you work with is so important to us. Now we want to get to the point where we get this message out to more people because there are companies who want to do this, but they're not quite sure how.
Q. Why did you decide to work with us?
A. We've always been driven by a slightly greater purpose, so we are very conscious of how we can provide a positive impact on our planet. It was just a no-brainer for us to work with you once we saw CleanHub’s mission and it makes us feel even more passionate about what we do.
Sometimes in business, you can get so focused on the business itself. So to be able to team up and support other people who were just doing amazing things for our planet and our oceans is just great.
And advocating for that matter in any way we can is something we both believe very passionately and strongly about. There's one side to being sustainable and clean.
But we need to look at taking it one step further. How do we eliminate that waste even getting into the ecosystem? So working together with like-minded people is really our motivation.
Q. What is your wish for 2030 as a business owner and as a global citizen?
A. It's quite simple, but it's a huge thing: to touch more minds and to raise awareness in terms of ocean conservation and throwing rubbish into the environment.
Everyone is sort of somewhat aware, but maybe not educated enough to know what to do about plastic pollution. We wish to create a world where citizens are cognizant of their actions and understand that every small action that we do has an impact.
A lot of times people think, well, it doesn't matter if I use this or that period product. But tampons, applicators, pads, and wrapping are some of the biggest plastic polluters in the world. People don't think about the fact that a tampon applicator you use for less than a second is plastic.
It's a huge piece of plastic for a second. Changing people's minds and habits is the biggest push that we're hoping to have an impact on.
Summary
Gabby and Jennifer from Tampon Tribe are excellent examples of how different brands can make an environmental difference if they put their minds to it. Not only does their work benefit the planet, but people too.
Want to reduce your business’s plastic footprint? We can help. All you have to do is get in touch with our in-house team. Once we’ve received your details, we can arrange a call to discuss which plastic recovery plan will suit your business needs best.
