Tea

My month without plastic is now over and you can read about my conclusions Californian environmentalist Beth Terry writes Sustainable Dave is another Californian and the author of It is an important waste issue, as women in the UK throw away 4.3 billion items a year - which either go to landfill, incineration or get flushed away and risk ending up on beaches or in the sea.

Thankfully, this last problem has significantly reduced since the Marine Conservation Society and other bodies launched their Bag It and Bin It campaign. But it has yet to be eliminated.

The average age for onset of menstruation is now 12.5 years and a woman can expect to continue having periods until she is about 50, meaning 37.5 years of using sanitary protection (with a year or so off for each pregnancy).

According to a