Recycle Your Used Condoms!

I know you stay awake at night worrying about our ever filling landfils and how you can help the situation. Well here is a way you can help!

China: Used condoms recycled as hair ties used condoms are being recycled into hair bands and hair ties in southern China, threatening to spread sexually-transmittable diseases they were originally meant to prevent, state media reported yesterday. In the latest example of potentially harmful Chinese-made products, rubber hair bands have been found in local markets and beauty salons in Dongguan and Guangzhou cities in southern Guangdong province, the China daily newspaper said. “These cheap and colourful rubber bands and hair ties sell well ... threatening the health of local people,” it said. Despite being recycled, the hair bands could still contain bacteria and viruses, it said. “People could be infected with Aids, (genital) warts or other diseases if they hold the rubber bands or strings in their mouths while weaving their hair into plaits or buns,” the daily quoted a local dermatologist as saying. A bag of 10 of the recycled bands sells for just 25 fen (4 cents), much cheaper than others on the market, accounting for
their popularity, the newspaper said. A government official was quoted as saying that recycling condoms was illegal. China’s manufacturing industry has been tarnished this year by a string of scandals involving shoddy or dangerous goods made for domestic and foreign markets. It has launched a public relations blitz aimed at playing up efforts to strengthen monitoring systems. — AFP (As published in the 14 November issue of Today)

Now I bet this raises a whole new set of questions: 1) Do they have collection bins? 2) Can people pick them up and turn them in for cash, like aluminum cans? 3) Who gets to wash them? 4) Are they washed? 5) Where do they get them?