Are used condoms biodegradeable?
Answer:
So you are smart enough to practice safe sex (preventing both pregnancy and STDs) by properly using a condom. But what do you do with the condom when you are done with it? Here are some hints on environmentally-friendly condom disposal.
Firstly, don’t flush your condoms, ever! Flushing condoms is not the way to deal with them. Condoms can clog the plumbing in your house. This can be an expensive and embarrassing situation. If the condom manages to make it through your septic system, it will only end up with the solid waste. This means that somebody has to pull it out of the sewage treatment, which isn’t pleasant for anybody. The condom might even make it past the treatment plant. This is not good because it means that it could end up in the water supply, and the last thing we need is more pollution in our rivers, lakes, and oceans.
Not all condoms are made equally. Most condoms are made of latex, which means that they will biodegrade. Latex, however, does not biodegrade when it is under water, which is why it is not good to flush your used condoms. Condoms are not entirely made of latex, however, and the other things on condoms (spermicide, lubricant) might affect the biodegradability. The best option seems to be to send them to a landfill and see how they pass the test of time.
Regardless of what material of condom you use (latex, polyurethane, or lambskin), you are going to have a wrapper to dispose of. These foil wrappers will not biodegrade, nor can they be recycled. This simply has to be put in the garbage.
Never reuse a condom. Although reduce, reuse, and recycle is the motto for environmentalism, you need to put your health first on this one. Don’t minimize your condom use, don’t reuse your condoms, and it’s too bad that you can’t yet recycle them. To think on an environmentally broader scale, using condoms is environmentally friendly because it is preventing the spread of communicable diseases.
I believe that latex, being a natural compound, will degrade. If they are made of a synthetic, probably not. Nonbiodegrable plastic is a huge problem.
no man, go get it
No,but they can be recycle and be used again and again
Yes. You needn't feel any guilt for the geo-friendliness of your condom. The wrapper however, is most likely not biodegradable.
http://www.goaskalice.columbia.edu/2375.
yes, put them in with the compost.
Who cares? You can just do without... babies are guaranteed 100% biodegradable! ;P
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