Contraceptive options and their associated estrogenic environmental loads: relationships and trade-offs

This work explores the relationships between a user's choice of a given contraceptive option and the load of steroidal estrogens that can be associated with that choice. Family planning data for the USA served as a basis for the analysis. The results showed that collectively the use of contraception in the USA conservatively averts the release of approximately 4.8 tonnes of estradiol equivalents to the environment. 35% of the estrogenic load released over the course of all experienced pregnancies events and 34% the estrogenic load represented by all resultant legacies are a result of contraception failure and the non-use of contraception. A scenario analysis conducted to explore the impacts of discontinuing the use of ethinylestradiol-based oral contraceptives revealed that this would not only result in a 1.7-fold increase in the estrogenic loading of the users, but the users would also be expected to experience undesired family planning outcomes at a rate that is 3.3 times higher. Additional scenario analyses in which ethinylestradiol-based oral contraceptive users were modeled as having switched entirely to the use of male condoms, diaphragms or copper IUDs suggested that whether a higher or lower estrogenic load can be associated with the switching population depends on the typical failure rates of the options adopted following discontinuation. And, finally, it was estimated that, in the USA, at most 13% of the annual estrogenic load can be averted by fully meeting the contraceptive needs of the population. Therefore, while the issue of estrogen impacts on the environment cannot be addressed solely by meeting the population's contraceptive needs, a significant fraction of the estrogenic mass released to environment can be averted by improving the level with which their contraceptive needs are met.