Thinking outside the, um, box

Hanah Metchis | August 16, 2004

Indian citizens are being flooded with free condoms because of their high population growth and AIDS problem. But enterprising people are using them in some innovative ways:

Of the 891 million condoms meant to be handed out free, a considerable proportion were acquired by road-building contractors who mixed them with concrete and tar and used the mixture to construct roads, rendering road surfaces smooth and resistant to cracks.

Builders spread a bed of condoms beneath cement plastering on roofs, ingeniously preventing water seepage during the monsoon rains.

Weavers in Varanasi used around 200,000 condoms a day to lubricate their looms and to polish the gold and silver thread used to embroider the saris they produced.

They're also being used as fashion accessories, if you can believe the picture on the news article. (Link via Boing Boing)

Reason needs your support. Please donate today!

Try Reason's award-winning print edition today! Your first issue is FREE if you are not completely satisfied.

|8.16.04 @ 7:07AM|#

Another example of how subsidies distort the market with consequences opposite those hoped for.
US and European farm subsidies cause starvation in Africa.

In India, the obvious solution is to susidize Spanish flies.

Hanah, did you write the headline here? If so, I'm tellin' yo momma!

|8.16.04 @ 7:21AM|#

Ruthless,
Saying Spanish flies [sic] is the solution implies there is a problem with people in India being prolific. My girlfriend is from India and her parents' having eight children allowed her father to spend over half his adult life as a retiree (He lived to age 86.). If that was the plan, having a bunch of kids worked. By the way, all the children have a far higher standard of living than the parents had at the same age.

Do you think Hanah's mama will give her a whuppin' when she finds out?

|8.16.04 @ 7:44AM|#

KentInDC,

Hell no! I'm a hundred percent in favor of prolifigacy (sic)!
I would have been more than happy to try it myself as an IRA before the widdle woman had a premature hysterectomy.

So I'm stuck with my fruitless (yuk yuk) search for permanent disablility.

Thank goddess for WalMart greeters... seeing as how I'm finally doing some serious retirement planning.

|8.16.04 @ 2:03AM|#

Re: rubbers as fashion accessories - the late Lisa Lopes of "TLC" was mining that vein over ten years ago.

http://www.nestor.minsk.by/mg/mg99/17/mg91711.jpg

|8.16.04 @ 2:23AM|#

India! Where the rubber meets the road!

|8.16.04 @ 2:26AM|#

Um, yeah, who really thinks that India's population growth is due to the fact that the folks just can't get their hands on condoms?

As an aside, what exactly is involved in "lubricating your looms"? (que Dave Barry)

|8.16.04 @ 3:18AM|#

Condom use for something other than sex is not particularly new. Soldiers have used condoms to keep water out of the barrels of their weapons since at least WWII.

Justin|8.16.04 @ 3:42AM|#

Now, if they start using them for popsicle protectors, I think that's the point at which we should just throw our arms up in the air and scream.

|8.16.04 @ 4:29AM|#

Love the headline!

|8.20.04 @ 6:41AM|#

this is an examples of slags saying not to fuck.

i used to be sleeping with an indian slag and she was a motherbooooooooooooooopppppper!!!

debt consol&#10|12.4.04 @ 7:27PM|#

Reason Magazine