My husband warned me last night not to use hair elastics made in China, because he heard on NPR that a Chinese newspaper reported that some company there was recycling *used *condoms into hair elastics. No sign of the story on NPR’s site, and I asked him, “Did NPR report on this, or did they mention an unconfirmed report they hadn’t personally investigated?” He said he didn’t know, only heard the last part of the story. :dubious:
A delicately and cautiously crafted Google search later, and I see a bunch of sites carrying the story, such as the Brisbane Times. Yet no details, and certainly no information on how anyone knows these are used condoms, nor how a hair accessory manufacturer would obtain large numbers of used condoms in the first place. But of course they mention all the product safety issues from China recently. :dubious: :dubious:
Then I noticed that Yahoo News includes the name of the vocal Chinese dermatologist who’s so concerned about these prophylactic ponytail holders: “a local dermatologist who gave only his surname, Dong.” :dubious: :dubious: :dubious:
Wow, there’s a bullshit story if I ever heard one.
Where does one collect enough used condoms to recycle them into rubber bands, anyway? Does the company have a recycling box outside where people can drop them off?
Possibly, just possibly, this is a story of recycling old/expired/defective batches of condoms back into a usable product, and someone got the details wrong because it’s a much better story that way.
The sad part is how reputable news media will run with something like this because it’s attention-grabbing, but won’t bother to check up on the facts before doing so. And if they ever do put out a retraction or clarification, it’ll probably be buried as the tiniest little text link on their webpage, and that’s only if there’s a rule saying they have to do it.
Of course, if all this is somehow true, I’ll look pretty stupid. But I’d be surprised.
The temp girl at the office today told us about this story, and some story about an Indian man marrying a dog. Then when I mentioned my story (NaNoWriMo) later, she said, “Is it about a man marrying a dog?” :rolleyes: I wanted to say, man you only like to talk about the negative things, don’t you? Instead I said, “India has a million more stories than a man marrying a dog,” and left it at that.
After reading these articles I don’t know if they’re right either. It sounds like a load of hooey to me. I’m sure it’s something similar to what Antigen says.
Let’s say there is a water treatment plant that is interested in lowering its environmental impact. As the water comes in from homes all around the town, certain things seem to come up with regularity that are not bio-degradable. If it was a relatively easy sort, I can see that this particular non-biodegradable, fairly common item might fit the bill. They contact a local recycling company and ask if this would be a useful item, the indicate yes. When said water company gets a big enough load to warrant a recycling trip, off it goes.
I must say, that is the most creative spelling I’ve seen yet.
Condoms are made of latex - right? And latex is not quite the same as elastic - I don’t get how condoms would have the same elastic properties as ‘ponytail holders’.
IMHO, I don’t think that harvesting used condoms at the wastewater treatment plant and then having to washing all of the grease etc. off of of them in order to recycle them would be cost-effective. I especially don’t think this can be done for the low price given in the article: