Cheuk Laam Wong

Looop Can, BA Product Design, Unilever #Unstereotype, 2021

Inspired by Buoyancy Force, Looop Can is an NGO project to provide a cleaning kit for washing reusable menstruation pads. This will reduce period poverty for refugees in water-scarce regions or asylum seekers in financial difficulties.

Almost 60% of female refugees suffer period-poverty problems as they spend their limited funds on food or nappies for their babies. A washing kit for reusable sanitary pads will benefit not only refugees but also people who have limited finances and insufficient education about menstrual-health management.

It can be used to wash a reusable sanitary pad with 500ml of water. Looop Can provides baking soda to help remove bloodstains with this natural cleaning detergent. Even wastewater can be discarded in to the natural environment as the period blood and baking soda provide extra nutrients to plants. Instead of completely creating a new kit from scratch, Looop Can recycles a steel can into the design process so that users can replace their can if they find the old one starting to rust or become damaged. With injection modelling, the expected total cost should be around £3 for the whole set, including the washing parts and pads.

Looop Pad uses bamboo terry as the contact layer, bamboo fleece as the absorption layer and PUL as the leak-proof layer. These are anti-odour, anti-bacterial and eco-friendly, and less likely to cause skin allergies. When the pad is hung up to dry, it isn’t obvious that it’s a menstruation product, and it takes half a day to dry indoors. Using rectangular shapes reduces waste during production.

Looop Can has a five-year expected lifespan. This covers the minimum time a refugee is likely to stay in a camp waiting for identity approval.

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