Assistant Director, Sri Lanka Standard Institution
Hi, my name is Pramudi Perera, I am working as an assistance director attached to the standard formulation division of Sri Lanka Standards Institution. My involvement is basically in textile and paper field. I’ve served as the technical secretary for the working groups created for formulating standards related to menstrual products like single use sanity pads , Ultra-thin pads and panty liners. Those are the main types available in current Sri Lankan market and we are looking forward to work on formulating national standards for reusable pads and menstrual cups as there is a trend in sustainable approaches. So as the technical secretary when developing the standard it is very much important to have an overall idea about the products as well as the expected quality levels. So, I found myself must be here in this TC. Also, we have certain issues like including biocompatibility test in to the standard, which we do not have testing facility within the country now. Even though we have such a gap, we concluded to publish the standards by aligning to FDA requirements for the microbiological parameters to ensure the hygienically safeness of the products. Having an idea about the global view for these products is very important, so that would be a good guideline for us for the future discussions in the working group as well as establishing the test facilities.
There are many. As I said earlier what is mainly available in our market is Sanitary pad which is disposable and it is made with top sheet, absorbent core, and the back sheet. Some top sheets are claimed as cotton feel but not really cotton. Some top sheets are having PE material which gives more dry feeling. Absorbent core is made of wood pulp and mixed with the SAP (Super Absorbent Polymer). Back sheet is mainly made with PE to ensure the leek proof property. All the raw materials are being imported to our country. Currently we have many local manufacturers who are certified and complying with the national standard requirements for sanitary pads. We do not have standards for reusable types, and we have few local manufacturer who is doing medium scale manufacturing of reusable pads and what they mainly use is cotton and sometimes polyester too. There are importers of reusable pads, cups and tampons
Why is it relevant to your organization to participate in the development of these ISO standards ?
We are the national standard body, so formulating national standards is our prime duty. When setting the limits and identifying the relevant test methods and developing the standards we are obliged to follow ISO.
Specially, when setting limits and choosing the applicable test methods it is sometimes difficult to convince the manufacturers and importers during the working group stage. So having ISO standard as a guideline we can show them the global requirement of safety and hygiene which need to be ensured. That’ll make things easy in taking decisions at the working group.
Meanwhile, we hope try and implement the test facilities to perform the biocompatibility tests which we cannot perform at the moment and then we’ll be able to adopt this ISO standard as it is in future.
What is the benefits for you to participate in this work?
Like I said earlier, this is more like a guideline for us to follow the recommendations and it will be adopted as it is once we can perform the full tests in it.
I joined this technical committee very recently around last October. I have only participated in online meeting for working groups, so this is my very first experience in a technical committee. It is quite interesting, and I do learn a lot by sharing our view and also listening to others. Today I could come to this beautiful country and meet you all because of the ISO sponsorship program and I’m grateful for that.
For a country like Sri Lanka, it is a very good opportunity to be here in person. In online meetings we cannot see each other, and communication could be a bit boring with the time but on site meetings are more fruitful and builds a friendly atmosphere. You can see and enjoy the conversations and understand the things in a much clear way.