Free menstrual-product dispenser ‘pilot’ coming to campuses this fall

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There’s nothing fun about your period catching you with your pants down, especially when you don’t have the supplies to deal with it and neither does the washroom you’re in.

In this less-than-ideal situation, people who menstrate are forced to troubleshoot with toilet paper, ask a friend and hope, or head home. 

If you’re at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, where there are no usable menstrual product dispensers at any of the campuses, the two options are the bookstore to buy a pad or the Kwantlen Student Association office to very publicly request a product — if either option is open. 

“The reason we got to where we are is kind of an unfortunate situation…. Around five years ago, maybe even sooner than that, we used to have dispensers in all of the female washrooms,” says David Stewart, executive director of Facilities Services at KPU. 

“They were widely abused and frequently vandalized…. That excessive vandalism and abuse led to the removal of those machines and changed distribution to the bookstore and the KSA.”

This fall semester, however, the long collective punishment could be coming to an end. 

KPU’s Facilities Services is launching a “pilot” this fall to introduce free menstrual-product dispensers in 150 washrooms across all campuses. It was announced in an internal post on Aug. 10, and to KPU students’ emails on Aug. 15. 

The plan is to install dispensers in 150 washrooms across all KPU campuses, so long as no further excessive vandalism occurs while they’re in the process. 

“If it does, we’re going to have to question what we’re doing, and that would be very sad,” Stewart says.

The dispensers will be going into women’s, gender-neutral, and universal washrooms, offering KPU students, staff, and faculty a much more discreet and nearby, open-at-all-hours solution to managing menstruation.

Compared to the last time dispensers were in KPU bathrooms, Stewart says these new ones will not have a dispensing cost because they want to remove the financial barrier for folks to access products that should be considered as essential as toilet paper and paper towels.

Facilities Services is taking on this pilot now because there’s more of “an awareness” on how access to free menstrual products is beneficial for everyone.

“We hadn’t done much – except our research – mainly because of COVID…. It was put on the backburner. We did our research and we knew that we were going to do it, it was just a matter of when we were going to launch. So, we are very eager about getting back to campus this fall,” Stewart says.

The lack of access to menstrual products on KPU campuses has been an ongoing discussion, including with the Kwantlen Student Association. During their May 27 executive meeting, they brainstormed how they could improve the situation if KPU wasn’t going to. 

In their meeting, KSA executives acknowledged their office closed after 4:00 pm, and even when offices are open some students could feel shy or embarrassed asking office staff for a free pad or tampon. 

Possible solutions that were suggested included placing a box of menstrual products in the KSA office, installing a vending machine across from the office for easy monitoring, or installing shelves outside of high traffic bathrooms for easy restocking.

KSA Executive Director Ben Newsom voiced their concerns during the meeting about costs, maintenance, people taking an excess of products, and vandalism. Executives also acknowledged how KPU tried in the past, but that maintenance proved to be “too much for them.”

Despite the challenges, the KSA agreed the topic was worth reviewing. At their executive meeting on Aug. 17, the KSA made plans to place a menstrual-product dispenser in the washroom near their office on Surrey campus. 

UBC tackled menstrual-product access in 2019

Sean Lynch, director of custodial services at the University of British Columbia, says that dispenser vandalism was something they also dealt with before making the switch to free menstrual-product dispensers back in 2019. 

“Replacing those units once they were damaged was quite costly. They were usually about $300 each, and typically they would hold $10 worth of coins in them…. We did notice a huge decrease in vandalism, I don’t think we’ve had a single unit vandalized since we’ve made this transition,” Lynch says.

“So, there is a benefit to other facility groups considering the cost benefit analysis of decreasing vandalism by just putting these on a free-vend system,” he says.

In collaboration with youth-run, non-profit Free Periods Canada, UBC finished retrofitting their 285 coin-operated dispensers to be free and installed an additional 83 new free dispensers in 2020.

They also made free-vend menstrual-product dispensers a requirement for new washroom spaces in their technical guidelines for new buildings.

UBC made the switch in 2019 because their dispensers needed to be replaced at the time regardless, and also because it was a “no-brainer” that menstrual products should be free, says Lynch.

“We considered different risks and none of those really came to fruition, like people taking lots of supplies home or that the supplies would begin to clog up our plumbing systems,” he says.

But when they evaluated these risks and the costs in comparison to the benefits of offering free menstrual products on campus, the good “far outweighed” the potential “bad.” 

In their UBC 2020 Report, Free Periods Canada found that 85 per cent of the 102 UBC community members surveyed in 2019 agreed that having access to menstrual products on campus “would positively impact academic, extracurricular, and social experiences for students on campus.”

Three key issues were identified: availability of menstrual products, stigmatization of periods and people who menstruate, and a lack of communication with people who don’t menstruate. 

They proposed varying solutions, including installing dispensers in male, female, and gender-neutral bathrooms, de-gendering language around menstruation, and offering educational activities and programs to people who don’t menstruate. 

How the government is tackling menstrual-product access

Offering free menstruation products has increasingly become more popular at various institutions, including public schools, as conversations around periods and the stigma surrounding them have broadened.

In 2021, United Way published their Period Promise Research Project report. 

Funded by the Government of British Columbia, the research project aimed to provide insight on what period poverty — or the lack of access to menstrual products and the facilities to use them safely — looks like in the province. 

“Period poverty is a symptom of poverty. It exists largely because menstrual products are expensive. They are viewed as a consumer good rather than an essential support for people who menstruate,” reads the report.

Approximately 51 per cent of their 1,600 public survey respondents shared that they’d struggled to purchase menstrual products, 26 per cent indicated they’d gone through a period without products, and 18 per cent indicated they’d missed school because they didn’t have access to products. 

As part of their year-long project that led to the report, United Way provided free pads and tampons to 12 community organizations to give out, and over 300,000 products were distributed.

Results highlighted that having access to period products at community organizations makes it easier for folks to stay connected and engaged with their community while menstruating. For more than 70 per cent of survey respondents, “it improved their relationship with that organization.”

This year, the B.C. government created a new Period Poverty Task Force in May to support their “goal to end period poverty and remove the stigma associated with menstruation.” 

It’s supported by $750,000 in provincial funding and chaired by Nikki Hill, who also co-chaired United Way’s Period Promise campaign.

The federal government is allotting $25 million in their 2022 budget to establish a national pilot project for a “Menstrual Equity Fund.”

“Access to menstrual products is a basic necessity, but current barriers make it difficult for women, girls, trans and non-binary Canadians to fully participate in school, work and society. The federal government is committed to addressing the barriers related to affordability and stigma that some Canadians face when accessing menstrual products,” reads the budget.

Improved menstrual product access at KPU

By offering access to menstrual products inside of washrooms this fall, KPU is also creating a safer, reduced-barrier space for transgender and non-binary folks to access products they need but may not feel comfortable requesting in public.

When KPU last had dispensers on campus, they were strictly in women’s washrooms. Expanding that reach this fall to gender-neutral and universal washrooms will offer more safety and access to folks of all gender identities.

In addition to improving safety for genderqueer folks, the university offering more widespread access to free menstrual products could bring a lot of benefits to folks on campus and work to repair some of the damage done by restricting access over the past five years.

Based on UBC’s experience, the potential for vandalism incidents could decrease and student life on campus could grow at KPU too.

“People are excited … there’s no question of whether you stock a washroom with toilet paper. [With] these other products, there should be no question with that either,” Stewart says.