Young Aussie’s free solution to $6,750 cost-of-living issue plaguing millions: ‘Shocked’

A young Aussie has shared the “world first” way she hopes to end an issue plaguing millions of people around the world. Period poverty is rife in Australia and more people are struggling to afford sanitary products as the cost of living rises.

Remy Tucker told Yahoo Finance she was first exposed to the “brutal reality” of period poverty when she was studying to become a midwife. The 25-year-old Brisbane woman said she was working closely alongside refugees and young mothers who were being faced with a grim choice.

“Some of these mothers were as young as 14, and I was hearing these stories of women having to choose between buying baby formula for their newborns and period products for themselves,” she said.

Tucker said she was “shocked” when she discovered the scale of period poverty in Australia and it “lit a fire” in her to create change.

She was changing her studies to business and marketing at the time and said she was seeing the “hundreds of millions of dollars” being spent in the advertising world and thought there had to be a better way to utilise that money.

That’s where the idea for On The House was born, a company using advertising revenue to fund free period products in public bathrooms.

The ads will be placed on the product and packaging, along with digital dispensers that will be placed in bathrooms.

Tucker said the company would be launching in July in four venues in Brisbane and one on the Gold Coast, which will be a mix of universities and entertainment venues.

Tucker bootstrapped the company and has now got some advertisers on board prior to launch.

More Aussies struggling to afford period products

Share the Dignity’s latest Bloody Big Survey of 153,000 people found three in five people with periods, or 64 per cent, have struggled to afford period products due to cost.

It found people were spending a median of $15 per month on period products. With the average menstruating person having 450 periods in their lifetime, that adds up to $6,750 on period products.

Share the Dignity founder Rochelle Courtenay told Yahoo Finance more Australians were struggling to afford period products, even those on good incomes.

“Even if you look at the steady increase in the price of period products, where once you used to be able to get them for $3 or $4 now they're $6 or $7,” she said.

The impacts of period poverty can be far reaching, with 56 per cent of respondents revealing they had skipped work due to their period. The charity estimated this cost Australia’s economy $9.6 billion per year in missed days of work.

Courtenay said it was not just about addressing period poverty, but also creating menstrual equity to ensure everyone had access to menstrual products.

Courtenay said it was encouraging to see the Victorian government was now providing free pads and tampons through vending machines in public places across the state.

“It’s amazing. We worked with the Victoria Council and government for years to bring about this outcome. That is what we want in every state,” she said.

Courtenay said everyone had a role to play to achieve menstrual equity, including companies like On the House and councils.

“It is something we all need to do together and work in the same direction. It’s going to take everyone,” she said.

Tucker said her mission was for no woman to experience period poverty by 2035. She hopes to install 1,500 dispensers across Australia over the next five years, and more than 20,000 dispensers across Canada, the US, UK and Europe.