The Elementary School Origins of the Jihad Against Plastic Straws

You may have heard that Starbucks — ever at the vanguard of moonbattery — has proclaimed that it will eliminate all single-use plastic straws by 2020. You may also have heard that the lids it will use that allow drinking without a straw require more plastic than if they just stuck with the straws. You may be aware that the liberal jihad against plastic straws is reaching critical mass:

In July, Seattle imposed America’s first ban on plastic straws. Vancouver, British Columbia, passed a similar ban a few months earlier. There are active attempts to prohibit straws in New York City, Washington, D.C., Portland, Oregon, and San Francisco. A-list celebrities from Calvin Harris to Tom Brady have lectured us on giving up straws. Both National Geographic and The Atlantic have run long profiles on the history and environmental effects of the straw. Vice is now treating their consumption as a dirty, hedonistic excess.

But did you know that the anti-straw jihad is the brainchild of a little kid?

It began with a 9-year-old boy named Milo Cress and his 2011 campaign, “Be Straw Free,” which launched to raise awareness about plastic waste.

His big finding? Americans use more than 500 million drinking straws daily, enough to fill 125 school buses. That figure has become highly touted since, referenced in straw ban coverage from The New York Times and National Geographic to reports from the National Park Service (and USA TODAY).

Young Milo came up with the outlandishly improbable 500 million straws per day stat himself. Adult moonbats ran with it.

As a result, straws will probably be illegal soon. Then the moonbats will fly off to the next intrusive campaign so that they can take away some other useful aspect of our world, like a swarm of locusts looking for another field of crops to devour.

Even now some 4th grader may be inventing an inspirational number. Did you know that Americans consume 1 billion napkins per microsecond? Let’s demonize napkins next.

On tips from Jester, Chronos Z. Wonderpig, 1-Bodhisattva, and Artfldgr.

The post The Elementary School Origins of the Jihad Against Plastic Straws appeared first on Moonbattery.