Campus

Free pads and tampons on campus

Coming October, emergency packets of sanitary towels or tampons will be available free of charge in all educational buildings on the TU Delft campus.

(Photo: Natracare / Unsplash)

This is the result of a successful pilot. Since March, the university has provided free menstrual products at the service desks of the Built Environment Faculty, the Industrial Design Engineering Faculty, Pulse and the Fellowship. After a positive evaluation and approval by the TU Delft Executive Board, the pilot will now be converted into a permanent service and extended to all educational buildings and the TU Delft Library.

In addition, the range of products has been made more sustainable. Instead of the current synthetic products, the emergency packets now contain organic cotton sanitary towels and tampons.

Emergency break
During the monthly meeting between the Student Council and the Executive Board on 31 August, councillor and initiator Rutger Blijleven (Oras) and vice rector magnificus Rob Mudde discussed the results of the pilot.

Service desk workers already handed out 176 packages, said Blijleven. The costs were on average 200 euros per building. The facility management department is positive about the pilot and would like to expand it. As far as thats concerned, theres nothing to stop a structural distribution of menstrual products.

Mudde agreed, but said he would pull the emergency brake if the costs were to rise too high. In emergencies this is a great service, but the taxpayer should not have to fund this. After all, we do not provide free lunches either.

  • The free emergency packets with tampons or sanitary towels will be available from 1 October onwards at the service desks of the eight faculties, Pulse, Echo, Fellowship, Drebbelweg and the Library.
News editor Marjolein van der Veldt

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m.vanderveldt@tudelft.nl

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