Is Your Birth Control Green?
July 21, 2009 by Jennifer Chait
Filed under Green Living
The Huffington Post has a nice little poll up about green birth control. Actually, birth control is just not all that green. As the poll points out, no one is recycling condoms (obviously – and PS don’t try), the birth control pill may release excess estrogen into the water supply, and while copper IUDs may be the eco-friendliest of all, few women use them.
I’ve thought about this before because pill packets especially the heavier plastic ones have always bugged me. They seem like they’d make the pill the least eco-friendly birth control option, but the Huffington Post piece points out that 2.75 million pounds of used-condom refuse ends up in landfills nationwide. So neither seems exceptional when it comes to eco-friendly aspects. That said, the IUD is no good at protecting you from sexually transmitted diseases, so while it may be an eco-friendly choice, I can’t say it’s an across the board good choice.
For both birth control and STD protection you need condoms. There are, btw, biodegradable condoms, but they’ll only protect against pregnancy not STDs, so if you’re not with your totally committed soul mate right now, the best thing to do is to limit the impact your condom use makes. For example…
- Recycle those boxes! While condoms aren’t recyclable yet, the boxes are big and they can easily be tossed into your recycle bin. If you’re too embarrassed to toss them in your home recycling bin for fear that someone will see, well, maybe you should be holding off on sex. It’s no big!
- DON’T leave condoms out on the beach, in a park, or elsewhere out in nature. Toss in an actual trash bin.
- Eventually you might want to consider a monogamous relationship – then you can use those biodegradable condoms (after being tested for STDs of course). Yes, as it turns out being in a committed relationship, may be the greenest choice here.
Read more about green sex! Yahoo right?
[image via stock.xchang with a wee bit of altering]
For those primarily concerned by climate change: some condom manufacturers are making their products less carbon intensive but not even telling us! The health and well-being message which needs to be got across is (rightly) deemed more important than ‘green’ condoms.
The chairman of the company which makes the Durex brand recently detailed how much less carbon intensive Durex condoms were becoming in a quietly-released eco-article, but their normal PR refuses to pursue the message. The company gains by reduced production costs and we gain from making our nocturnal habits less carbon-intensive!