# Birth control pills make good fertilizer for plants????
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birth-control-pills-make-good-fertilizer-for-plants/125059
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 22, 2002, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birth-control-pills-make-good-fertilizer-for-plants/125059 "2002-08-22T12:01:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Hemlock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hemlock)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2002, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birth-control-pills-make-good-fertilizer-for-plants/125059/1 "2002-08-22T12:01:27Z")
Sounds crazy - pills designed to supress fertility in humans helping plants grow. However, my domestic helper (DH) has recently decided that my apartment needs an orchid plant. It looks like 2 pairs of large dogs’ tongues (big ones) flopping over either side of a basket 6" in diameter. A central sprout is growing directly upwards. The basket is full of moss.
At first, my DH decided egg shells would help it grow. Then she put some BBQ charcoal on. Now, she is putting pills on it (ground-up - “Nordette”, levonorgestrel with ethynil estradiol, according to the box - you can buy them off the shelf here, like baked beans).
I say she’s nuts. Any botanists or gardeners able to back me up??? Did a Google search. i found that the eggshells are favored by some other orchid fans (though they happen to be Filipino, like my DH). But no mention of birth control pills.
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### Author:  [@easy\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/easy_e)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2002, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birth-control-pills-make-good-fertilizer-for-plants/125059/2 "2002-08-22T14:57:53Z")
This anecdote was mentioned in Anne Fadiman’s book, _The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down_. Some S. California physicians were complaining that Hmong women were fertilizing plants with their birth control pills, rather than taking them themselves.
I don’t know of the mechanism as to why it would work, though.
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### Author:  [@chukhung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chukhung)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2002, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birth-control-pills-make-good-fertilizer-for-plants/125059/3 "2002-08-22T16:12:50Z")
Sorry. Didn’t find anything about orchids and birth control pills, but I did run across this [press release](http://www.geosociety.org/news/pr/01-47.htm) from the Geological Society of America. I have no idea at all if the science is valid or completely loony:
> [@](#):
>
> Hermaphrodite fish are on the rise, thanks to the birth control pill and other natural and unnatural forms of estrogen that have made their way into the water. Feminized fish were first found downstream from sewage plants in the United Kingdom…[Chris Metcalfe, professor of Environmental and Resource Studies at Trent University in Ontario] found that very low levels of the estrogen hormones, 17 alpha-ethinylestradiol, 17 beta-estradiol, estrone and estriol, caused intersex and altered sex ratios in the aquarium fish…He believes that it is the female estrogen hormones released from sewage treatment plants that are responsible for the feminization of wild fish.
So even if the pills aren’t helping the orchids, they may be confusing the hell out of the fish downstream…
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### Author:  [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2002, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birth-control-pills-make-good-fertilizer-for-plants/125059/4 "2002-08-23T01:15:27Z")
I knew a guy in high school who collected birth control pills from girls to use on his plants. Dunno if it really worked, but the belief that it does isn’t unique.
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### Author:  [@Hemlock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hemlock)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2002, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/birth-control-pills-make-good-fertilizer-for-plants/125059/5 "2002-08-23T04:30:16Z")
I’m relieved that there are at least a few other people out there doing this - well, some Hmong women and a guy in **Lamia** ’s high school.
And effeminate fish. What next?