Looking for some environmentally friendly period alternatives? The average woman uses 20 tampons per period. If you were to times this by 12 months you would be using 240 tampons per year on average. Each year Australian women add around 500 million pads and 300 million tampons into landfill! Not only are pads and tampons bad for the environment they are also bad for your wallet. If you spend around $10 per month on disposable menstrual products you can expect to spend around $5400 over the lifetime of your period!