Sex, Sustainability, and the Condom Conundrum

Bedroom Waste

If you follow me on Instagram, you will have seen my latest interest in Mumbai’s botany. I went on two botanical trips; Rani Baug and Sanjay Gandhi National Park where a new interest in fungi and flora was born. Did you know Mumbai is the biggest metropolitan surrounding a forest in the world? Pretty cool.

Sahyadri was passionate about the environment, nature, animals and birds. Students and teachers would make their way to do bird watching or treks around the campus exploring the nature available. In my 6 years there, I didn’t go even once. But I did go for the campus clean-ups where a different side of our nature was explored. The nature that somehow kept getting dirty. How did a tiny school litter so much?

Slowly, I did start developing a hero complex when it came to clean-ups. I joined some clean-up mornings in Mumbai and well, let me tell you about the one item, you will find in every clean up. The one item that you really wish to never encounter in a public forum. The one item that is the definition of one-time-use. No matter where you go volunteer to clean up, you will always find a used condom.

There are many people who want to live an eco-friendly and sustainable life. Unfortunately, even when you search for alternatives to maintain this eco-friendly life, you will not find “sex lives” making their way to changes you need to incorporate. Condoms, lubes or any contraception are not the most eco-friendly things out there. That's because most condoms are made from synthetic latex and use additives and chemicals, meaning they cannot be recycled and many lubes are also petroleum-based, and therefore contain fossil fuels. This has led to a rise in water-based or organic products.

So, if one is passionate about preventing climate change and has a sex life, what does one do?

Many homemade alternatives for Lubes have been making rounds in the market, but is that enough?

Condoms, lube and daily contraceptive pills are all products that can generate packaging that ends up in landfills. IUDs (intrauterine devices) and implants are longer-term contraceptive options, which have less waste but come with their risks. People can’t stop using contraception because that brings the risk of unwanted pregnancy. Some interesting research even factored in how not having children can save a lot of water (I like how the pregnancy was factored into the eco-friendliness of sex lives.)

The research mentioned that if we assume that each condom weighs about 2g, the world produces condoms that weigh almost as much as 500 blue whales (7,00,00,000 kgs).

If one searches for eco-friendly alternatives to condoms, they might find themselves at a dead end because almost all websites still suggest condoms or birth control pills which are all packaged in plastic. The closest I came to finding any alternative was IUDs and vasectomies.

Does this mean that the impassioned protection of our environment should come at the cost of no protection in our sex lives?

Lauren, an interviewee on BBC mentioned that for the past 12 years she has been living a no-waste life and thus she doesn’t use condoms. However, she mentioned that unwanted pregnancies and STIs defeat the purpose of sustainable living and one must way their priorities accordingly.

The entire point of this article is not some remarkable discovery I made for an alternative but to simply put a thought about how sex-lives are often sidelined when it comes to the environment. Without proper emphasis given to this subject, we might find it difficult to get any alternatives to these latex, rubber and chemical-based contraceptives.

Hoping to clean up a used condom in the next clean-up.