Can You Flush Tampons?

Chocolate or vanilla? To be or not to be? Flush your tampon or bin it? One of life’s deep, most nagging questions. Can you flush tampons? And, perhaps even deeper - should you flush tampons?

If you ask your mum, sister, or friends, you’ll find out that there’s a lot of confusion around this burning topic. A lot of people say you can flush tampons, and a lot of people say you can’t. We’re here to weigh in with the verdict.

The short answer: No.

Let’s take a closer look. A lot of women and girls flush their tampons. Nothing immediately awful tends to happen if you do. It’s not like your toilet will immediately overflow into a gross watery mess all over the floor if you flush a tampon. But it could! That’s because tampons don’t break down in the toilet the same way toilet tissue does. Tampons are designed to stay in your vagina for up to 8 hours and come out whole. You don’t want them breaking down so easily in the presence of liquid!

So, when you flush a tampon, it can potentially cause a clog. These clogs might not happen in your water system. They can also happen farther down in the pipes or in the water treatment plans. Either way, they can be super annoying and very expensive to fix. It’s just best not to risk flushing your tampon.

Instead of flushing, wrap up your tampon (either discreetly in some toilet paper or in the wrapper of your next tampon) and bin it. After all, it’s just as easy to dispose of your tampon in the rubbish as it is to flush it. Be sure to dispose of your applicator properly, too. Wrap it up and bin it.

So, in the case of flushing tampons vs binning tampons, the verdict is – bin it! Good habits make a difference. You can contribute to the care for the environment by not flushing your period products and disposing them in the bin instead.