According to The Huffington Post, “The fear of condom wrappers clogging our landfills and birth control hormones afflicting our waterways has caused many to reassess their options in the quest for the most eco-friendly birth control.” As if it isn’t bad enough that we feel a little like Osama bin Laden every time we buy a bottle of SmartWater (hey, sometimes a girl needs extra electrolytes)—now we’re forced to imagine a wasteland of used condoms every time we reach for a rubber? Dead fishies every time we pop our pills? Great. Super.
We’re not saying we aren’t dedicated to saving the environment (chill, eco-warriors). We’re just taking a moment to complain because, as young women, the onus of choosing and using birth control almost always falls on us as it is. Throw “green” into the safe-sex mix and our burden is that much greater. Now we don’t just have to weigh the fact that condoms “ruin spontaneous sex” or “don’t feel good." We also have to consider the fact that they produced 2.75 million pounds of waste in 2008.
According to this Slate column, the most eco-friendly form of birth control is the copper IUD, which is “hormone-free; made from a small amount of cheap, plentiful metal . . . and is 99 percent effective in typical use.” You could also use the pullout method, which the The New York Times reported this week to be surprisingly effective. (Somewhere in America an abstinence-only educator is screaming, "The greenest sex is no sex!") But neither IUDs nor withdrawal protects against STDs. What if one has to take that factor into consideration?
Last week, I talked about this too, the bottom line is, choosing the right birth control is complicated. And while we’ll do our best to “bone green,” we’ll ultimately have to protect ourselves according to our lifestyle needs.
How about we agree to turn the lights off during sex—and call it a carbon offset? —No. 25
