Just Say “No” to Plastic Straws

My friend Beth also picks up beach trash at La Jolla Shores. Her pet peeve.. plastic straws. As a volunteer for Birch Aquarium, she wrote an article back in 2017 in the High Tide Times on plastic straws.. just when the global world was spreading the word to stop sucking. Since her article was written: 

Glasgow Scotland banned plastic straws in government buildings, Major UK restaurant chains, including Pizza Express and Wagamama, have already stopped using them.

Seattle has banned them starting in July,  Malibu has banned in restaurants, in fact Malibu’s City Council approved a ban on all plastic cutlery, stirrers and straws in the beach community. (Go Malibu)

• November is designated as No Straw Month
• Feb. 3 is Say No To Straws Day

This is her article that was written in 2017.

Miami banned them in 2012.

Fort Myers, Florida, recently proposed to do the same, switching to biodegradable ones.

And Huntington Beach is bucking to be the first city in California to pass an outright ban on plastic straws.  As home to Straw Free (www.strawfree.org) , a non-profit group that raises awareness and advocates paper or bamboo straws as viable alternatives, Huntington Beach could lead the charge against plastic straws in our state.

Why should we care, too?

Because every day, 500,000,000 plastic straws—yes, 500 MILLION DAILY—are used once and thrown away in the U.S. alone. That’s enough to fill 127 large school buses every day or, if placed end to end, enough straws to circle the planet more than 2-1/2 times in a DAY!*

Plastic straws have become ubiquitous.  They automatically arrive in every beverage ordered, even water glasses, so no one really notices or thinks about it…but we all should.  Go walk on any beach and you’ll find dozens of plastic straws at the high tide line, usually tangled in clumps of seaweed.

Straws are among the Top 10 pieces of plastic found in the sea, polluting beaches from the South Pacific all the way up to Greenland and the Arctic Ocean.  In TIME magazine (May 29, 2017),  Henderson Island in the South Pacific is cited as having the highest density of plastic waste on its beaches than anywhere in the world, an estimated 37.7 million pieces of trash…and it’s uninhabited!  Plastic straws are sure to be among them.

The more of us who say “no” to plastic straws, the less non-biodegradable plastic will be floating in the sea.  Plastic straws are only photodegradable, which means that they break down into small bits that float in the ocean and look like food to fish, marine mammals and sea birds.  Reason #1 to stop using plastic straws, according to Straw Free, is because they kill so many creatures.  Every year, 1,000,000 sea birds die and 100,000 marine mammals and countless fish are killed from ingesting plastic.  Every year!  One sea turtle was found to have 1,000 pieces of plastic in its stomach, some assuredly from straws.  Another sea turtle in Costa Rica became a viral star in 2015 with over 11 million views of a plastic straw being extracted from its nostril.

Unfortunately, recycling straws is not an option in most cities.  Plastic straws are in the #5 category, which isn’t included in many recycling programs.

So next time you dine out, please say, “No straw” when you order.  That should make the restaurant or fast food place happy.  They save money handing out fewer straws.

Is it worth the effort?  You’d be surprised at the impact you can make simply saying, “Hold the straw, please.” It’s a numbers game, right?  Starts with you and a few friends to spread the practice locally, then it expands statewide, then stretches nationally and eventually, We the People have reversed the mindless issuing of plastic straws for all drinks ordered.

The added benefit is that, by becoming aware of straws, people then become more conscious of all the other plastic in their lives that doesn’t really need to be there and can cut back where possible.  Because the truly shocking figure is that by 2050, a little over 30 years from now, it is estimated that there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean, with plastic outweighing fish pound per pound.  Now that’s scary.  

As Nancy Wallace, Director of the Marine Debris Program at NOAA, said, “Unless we can stop the flow—turn off the tap of these pieces of debris going into the ocean all the time—we’re not going to stop the problem.”

We have to start somewhere.  Let’s start with us.  Now.

Please, say “no” to the straw.

Thank you.

Beth Wagner Brust

This article where it first appeared, in the July-September 2017 Birch Aquarium’s High Tide Times newsletter

Resources 

• World Centric 

Straw Free Campaigns 

• One Less Straw 
• The Last Plastic Straw 
• No Straw Stand (Cardiff)
• Strawless Ocean 
• Be Straw Free 

Ocean Friendly Restaurants 

• Ocean Friendly Restaurants

Alternatives to Plastic Straws if you can stop sucking 

• Earth 911

Hashtags for Straw Free

• #stopsucking
• #banthestraw
• #ditchthestraw
• #nomorestraws
• #refusethestraw
• #skipthestraw