Coronavirus kindness: Woman offers reusable menstrual pads

A woman has offered to make reusable menstrual pads for those struggling to buy disposable sanitary products in shops during the coronavirus lockdown.

Emma Crick has acted because she fears sanitary products will "become sparse in the same way as loo rolls".

The 38-year-old, who lives in Hull, is making them for free and using her bike to deliver them across the city.

She said she received more than a dozen orders and fabric donations after posting the gesture on social media.

"With the pandemic, I wanted to do my bit for the community," she told the BBC.

"I've been making reusable pads for a couple of years.

"I started doing it for myself, family and friends as a way to reduce them going to landfill and to help protect the environment."

Ms Crick, originally from Essex, said she also wanted to make reusable pads affordable, in a bid to tackle period poverty.

"I was planning to build it up as a business before the pandemic started and aiming to have a social enterprise.

"But because of the lockdown my business didn't get off the ground."

She also appealed for donations of fabric made of natural materials such as cotton and woollen felt, and has also offered free online coaching classes for those interested in making their own pads.

To adhere to the government guidelines during the outbreak, Ms Crick said she was adopting stringent hygiene methods by washing the reusable pads after they were made and urged recipients to wash them when they received them.

Follow BBC East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].