Tampons are awesome.

Not only do they make periods less messy, more manageable and allow you to go swimming, they have a huge number of other uses.

Now engineers from the University of Sheffield have discovered that glow-in-the-dark tampons can be used to stop sewage leaking into rivers.

The untreated white cotton used in tampons glows under UV light when they're soaked in dirty or polluted river water.

This works because chemicals called optical brighteners are used in things like laundry detergent, shampoos and toilet paper to enhance whites and brighten colours.

When a tampon comes into contact with water contaminated with even a small amount of optical brighteners, it will absorb the chemical and glow under the light.

Researchers suspended tampons for three days in 16 pipes that ran into streams and rivers in Sheffield and then tested them under UV light.

Nine of the tampons glowed, showing that the water running into the rivers was polluted.

Going back through the pipe network system with the help of Yorkshire Water, they dipped a tampon in at each manhole to see where the sewage was entering the system and households that had a problem.

The findings are published in the Water and Environment Journal.

The team now wants to trial it on a wider scale in Bradford.

Professor David Lerner who led the study explained that more than a million homes had sewage running into the river rather than going to a treatment plant.

He said that using tampons was a cheap and effective solution to a difficult problem which is hard to detect.

He said: "The main difficulty with detecting sewage pollution by searching for optical brighteners is finding cotton that does not already contain these chemicals. That's why tampons, being explicitly untreated, provide such a neat solution.

"Our new method may be unconventional but it's cheap and it works."

Periods and detecting sewage are not the only reasons tampons are the mini-superheroes in your make-up bag.

Ten other uses for tampons

Automobiles

Tampons have made a fair few appearances on Top Gear.

Jeremy Clarkson used them in the Bolivia special to waterproof his fuel tank cap while driving through a rainforest river.

James May extolled their virtues for cleaning engines, saying in one episode that when you have a twin cylinder motorcycle "you get a bit of oil that always leaks out through the seal and you can't get at it to mop it up".

His solution? "Put a Lil-Let on a screwdriver and poke it in."

He also admitted using them to clean his cooker, specifically. "When you're boiling something and it goes in that bit at the back where you can't get your finger in and if you don't clean it out it goes rancid and smells forever."

Nosebleeds

A mini-tampon is sterile, absorbent and applies just enough pressure to constrict the blood vessel. No more pinching. (You might want to check with a doctor before you take our advice).

Pets

You can use tampons for cleaning the ears of big dogs. Check with your vet first though.

They also make a great cat toy.

Hunting

Hunters in the US sometimes use them as bait, dipping them in something that smells attractive (like doe urine) to lure animals.

Budget hair curlers

There are a lot of videos on YouTube showing you how to use your tampon as hair curlers.

An improvised dressing

As they are sterile, they can be opened up, placed over a wound, then taped in place until a more sophisticated dressing is available.

Water filter

Lost in the wild, a tampon could make a handy water filter if nothing else is available.

Again it's the tight weave of the cotton and sterility that's so useful.

Push the wadding into the neck of the bottle and dirt catches in the cotton before leaking out clearer the other side.

It doesn't filter out chemicals, but it could take a lot of the sediment out.

Fire starter

Tampons are super dry and make great kindling.

Yes, tampons are amazing.

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