What use is a sustainable product if no one uses it? Reusable period products have been around for decades, yet most of the market is not using them. We knew that 60% of UK women had a preference for tampons and switching to existing reusable alternatives required too much of a behaviour change. That, in essence, was our design brief for D. We wanted to create a product which required a small change in behaviour but had a huge change in waste. Our solution was D, the world’s first reusable tampon applicator. Applicators are very useful but throw them away and they quickly become very useless — period products are the 5th most common item found on Europe’s beaches, more common than single-use coffee cups, cutlery or straws. D works like a normal applicator but instead of throwing it away, you use it again and again, for life — providing the convenience and familiarity of using an applicator tampon but without the waste. We knew hygiene could be a significant barrier to customers adopting a reusable applicator, so we worked with leading microbiologists to find the best antimicrobial materials on the market. D is made by UK medical engineers out of something called Mediprene® (don’t worry, we hadn’t heard of it either until we started researching materials) which has antibacterial Sanipolymers® (again, us neither) inside which act as natural sterilisers. As a result, D only needs to be rinsed with cold water after use to keep clean. D is built for life, but if you ever do want to get rid of your applicator, send it back to us and we’ll handle the recycling. By switching from single-use applicators to D, our customers can prevent up to 12,000 applicators ending up as waste over their lifetime. In our first year alone, we have prevented over 2.5 million applicators being thrown away.