Tampon boxes

Attention: Tampon boxes

From my MEP budget, I have so far produced a total of 6590 tampon boxes to raise awareness of period poverty and give tampons to people who urgently need them.

The European Parliament's financial administration sent me a letter after the first round of production (see downloads). I was told to pay attention to "economy, effectiveness and efficiency" in my spending.

For your information:

• Converted, a box with approx. 36 tampons cost 4.39 euros. (We used the design of the box as an educational surface, as well as the hidden object picture on the back of the packaging insert).
• We produced all components in the EU, as climate-neutral as possible, avoided plastic and did not use any harmful substances such as bleach.
• They are currently part of the "läuft" exhibition at the Museum of European Cultures in Berlin.
• We have sent the boxes to around 100 residential groups, women's refuges, schools and drug help centres in Hamburg, Berlin, Frankfurt, Magdeburg, the Ruhr region and Vienna. In March 2022, we delivered more boxes to the Ukrainian Embassy in Brussels.

In response to the letter, I reordered twice.

To this day, we still receive enquiries as to whether we have any boxes left to donate or whether we can produce more. The answer is: We have no more boxes and cannot produce any more because we have used up the maximum amount of the PR budget for this project. Theoretically, we could still initiate a tendering process, but that would make the process so complicated that the effort and result would no longer be in proportion. #economy #lol

Why were there only tampons and no menstrual cups or pads?
The tampons were our test run. It worked so well that we ordered a second and third round and thus exhausted the project budget. This meant that we were no longer able to purchase pads from the manufacturers without having to start a tendering process.

We did not even attempt to produce menstrual cups. This was also due to the fact that we particularly wanted to support people affected by period poverty. These people often do not have access to sanitary facilities, which are essential for the safe use of menstrual cups. If you want to donate sanitary products, most organisations are happy to receive sanitary pads, as these are the safest to use and can be used by all menstruating people.

How you can join the effort:

• Sign this petition against period poverty! #Periodenarmut: Freier Zugang zu Menstruationsprodukten in öffentlichen Einrichtungen
• Watch the video: here.
• Download our wimmelbild: You can find it here on the Downloads page. Use it as your desktop background or print it out and hang it up.