In certain cultures and contexts, tampons and menstruation cups are still considered taboo. For millions of people around the world, this makes access to safe and dignified periods a challenge, especially when resources and privacy are limited. Looop Can, one of the winners of the Redesign Everything Challenge, is hoping to make a difference by providing vulnerable communities with a smart—and affordable—solution.
Their reusable pads and cleaning kits are specially designed to help refugees, asylum seekers and other forcibly displaced people manage their periods confidently and discretely. The unique system they’ve developed is also incredibly resource-efficient, with the smallest model able to wash a used pad with only 500ml of water. All you need to do is insert the pad into the can, add water with a dash of baking soda, then swirl it around before soaking and rinsing.
But how exactly does it work? To learn more about the story behind the product, we recently sat down for a conversation with co-founders Cheuk Laam (Kara) Wong and Margaret Wu. In it, we discuss the beginnings of their collaboration, the lessons they’ve learned from their field tests, and their ambitious goals for the future.
Margaret and Cheuk Laam with the Looop Can cleaning kit, complete with reusable menstrual pads from bamboo fiber. Photo: Anisa Xhomaqi.
Hi Cheuk Laam, can you introduce yourself and your project?
Cheuk Laam: My name is Cheuk Laam (or Kara), I’m the designer and co-founder of Looop Can. This project goes back to September 2020, when I first learned about the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos.
Reading the news about what was happening there, was the first time I came across the words ‘period poverty’. And I found out that this was a big problem for vulnerable communities like refugees and asylum seekers, but that it’s often neglected because it’s an issue that people are not willing to talk about. At the time I was in my final year of art school, and I started thinking about how I could approach the problem with my design thinking skills.
What about you, Margaret? How did you first get involved?
Margaret: So I’m actually studying Politics in the U.S. right now, but when I was in highschool I did a research paper on some of the barriers that prevent forcefully-displaced women from accessing menstrual and sexual health care. And as I was reading through a lot of these academic sources, I found that there are many recurring factors that prevent women from accessing menstrual health care, like poverty and a lack of privacy.
I was super intrigued and wanted to see if there was anyone working towards a solution. So I did more research, and months afterward I came across an article about Looop Can. That’s when I looked Kara up and messaged her. When we met up, she gave me one of the early, 3D-printed prototypes of Looop Can that she had designed. I was able to help her negotiate a deal with her manufacturers and we’ve been working together ever since!
“There are many recurring factors that prevent women from accessing menstrual health care, like poverty and a lack of privacy.”
Can you tell us more about the problem that Looop Can is trying to address?
M: Yeah, so I think in the U.S., period poverty is something that’s very often brought up in the world of activism. But I think when you’re discussing period poverty and in terms of accessing a clean and dignified menstrual cycle for people who are forcibly displaced, it’s often another story.
From the conversations we’ve had with our partners in so many countries, we learned that a lot of women who are living in refugee camps are using makeshift menstrual pads, often made from old textiles or blankets. And then once they’re done using them, there isn’t a proper way to wash them because water is limited, there really isn’t any privacy, and there is often a lot of stigma surrounding periods. So Looop Can provides, essentially, a solution for people to clean their menstrual pads with pretty limited resources.
CL: This matters because it’s a mobility issue. If you don’t have access to menstrual products, for some people they’re like, I just don’t want to go out. They need it to access the outside world—to go fetch water, or work, or go to school. That’s why I created Looop Can, so that it removes the financial burden so it won’t be a reason that locks them in a space.
The first version of the Looop Can makes use of a reclaimed tin can as part of the kit. Photo: Looop Can.
How did you land on the design of the kits, Cheuk Laam?
CL: I tried a lot of different directions at first. Then one day I observed my flatmate doing the dishes, and she was conserving water by stacking up her teacups in the sink. I realised I could make use of simple physics in the same way for cleaning menstrual pads, too.
I thought it would be a brilliant way to save water, especially during the soaking progress. It is also a perfect way to make it less obvious to other people — because a lot of women don’t want other people know that they are actually washing menstrual pads. So with that as a starting point I went through literally around 100 prototypes made with cardboard and plastic. My tutors from back in Central Saint Martins guided me brilliantly into things like finding an international standard size for the water container, which ended up being the reclaimed tin can. That is what led to the second version of the container design, which is slightly larger but runs on the same principle. It doesn’t require electricity but it functions as a tiny washing machine.
“One day I observed my flatmate doing the dishes, and she was conserving water by stacking up her teacups in the sink. I realised I could make use of simple physics in the same way.”
What sort of response have you got from your tests?
M: Cheuk Laam did her field test in a refugee campaign in Greece. And how we function is that we would ship prototypes, samples to our partners, let’s say in Lebanon or Cambodia, and then they would conduct the testing in their facility. And then we would communicate back and forth regarding what’s working, what doesn’t work, what adjustments they are looking for.
For example, one of our most recent partnerships is actually with an organisation that’s based in South Africa as well as in Zimbabwe. It all started when someone observed that girls in their local community were often missing school during their menstrual cycles. This person wanted to offer a solution for the girls to clean their reusable pads and that’s when we were able to ship in samples of our kits. The feedback we got is that the girls liked the design and the functionality of the product, but that it is just a little too small for the size of pads that they are using. So that’s something that we’re definitely working on, which is adjusting the size so that we can better fit the different pads that our clients are using.
The container uses simple physics to wash menstrual pads while conserving water. Photo: Looop Can.
Did you learn anything surprising while working on this product?
M: One of the things that shocked me personally is that our product is not very expensive to manufacture. After the initial injection moulding fee, the price to mass-produce one Looop Can is around $1 for the entire kit. That, in my opinion, isn’t a very pricey product for what it does and the impact it can potentially have in someone’s health and well-being.
Where would you like Looop Can to go from here?
CL: So our current goal is to distribute our kits to 10,000 menstruators in refugee camps around the world. At the same time it is to keep on developing our product range, making use of the same principle so that it could fit into different demands, like reusable baby diapers or period panties, so that it can bring in more impact for menstruators with different habits.
M: Yes, and we also want to really emphasise our partnerships with different organisations. We want to communicate with them to see how we can better address our product to feed our clients’ needs, and how it functions in different communities with people who are living under different circumstances, whether they’re facing displacement or they are under other forms of injustice.
CL: Let’s create a world where no one has to choose between their period products and other necessities.
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This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Interview by Natasha Berting and Chieri Higa.