Tampons now free at University of Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS – During the past few years, University of Minnesota bathrooms have been slowly decaying. \nBut on Jan. 18, Facilities Management began a plan to improve bathroom conditions that included installing free tampon machines in the women’s bathrooms. \nFacilities Management plans to install one free tampon machine in every university building and has already installed the machines in all of the buildings on the East Bank, said Ruthann Manlet, a Facilities Management employee and organizer of the plan. High-traffic bathrooms will also provide free sanitary pads, she said. \nThe tampon machines should be installed in all university buildings by mid-April, Manlet said. \nFree tampon machines are being installed because most of the old machines didn’t work, she said. \n“Most of the machines have been broken on campus and the money that we were getting from the product was not taking care of the maintenance of the machines and the cost of the product, so we thought this would be a good thing to do for the community,” Manlet said. \nThe tampon machines are also being installed to reduce vandalism. \nPeople would break into the old machines and steal the money out of them, Manlet said.\n“When the machines were fully functional 15 years ago, we were getting vandalized all of the time,” she said. \nThe tampons are meant to be used in emergencies and not for convenience, but there is no way to prevent people from taking all of the tampons out of a machine, she said. \n“Over time we came to find that if professors or students know that a product is always there, they will stop taking all of them,” Manlet said. \nSo far, Facilities Management has spent $1,600 on tampons and $500 on installation. Each new machine costs about $100.