Yorkshire Water campaign helps Barnsley school with period education

Students at Outwood Academy Shafton are the latest to learn about sustainable period products and eradicating period poverty through Yorkshire Water and Hey Girls’ educational period campaign. 

The campaign aims to improve period dignity, educate young people about sustainable, reusable period products, and find an alternative method of disposal to flushing pads and tampons down the loo, which can cause blockages in the sewer network. 

Yorkshire Water’s education team have devised a programme that includes sessions on period health and wellbeing for secondary school students. As well as distributing free ‘Full Cycle’ kits, the period health education sessions feature where to access products and explain the benefits of sustainable products that can be better for the environment, the pocket and the sewer network.  

Anne Reed, social value and education manager at Yorkshire Water, said: "We are proud to be working with Hey Girls to help educate young girls in Yorkshire about reusable, sustainable period products and the benefits they bring, both environmentally and financially. 

“Over 220m non-sustainable products are flushed away every year which contain plastic and take a very long time to break down, which can cause problems to the sewage network. 

“The aim is not to convert everyone to reusable products, but to use them as a gateway to openly talk about period poverty and the problems flushing single-use sanitary products can cause." 

The partnership will provide 20,000 reusable, sustainable period packs to a number of secondary schools across the region. 

Outwood Academy Shafton was selected to take part in the programme because blockages are a known issue in the area. 

Alison McQueen, principal at Outwood Academy Shafton, said: “We were really pleased to welcome Yorkshire Water and Hey Girls into the academy to educate and to promote the use of sustainable period products. The partnership aims to make period products accessible to all while minimising environmental impact, both of these topics are important to our socially conscious students.

"Students are taught about sustainability through our Personal Development curriculum and are very aware of the need to live sustainably. Talking to students after the session, they felt empowered to make informed choices about their period products and contribute to a more sustainable future. We are incredibly thankful to Mrs Riley and Miss Kaye for their support in leading this project from an academy perspective and very grateful to Yorkshire Water and Hey Girls for their commitment to working with us." 

Kate Smith, co-founder and director of Hey Girls, said: “We are pleased that Yorkshire Water is underway with delivering educational sessions to young girls, to promote period dignity and providing them with free period products. We want to put an end to 1 in 10 people affected by period poverty in the UK and stop 49% of pupils missing an entire day at school because of their period.”