What's the deal with plastic straws?

Plastic straws have become a growing concern world wide. The evidence of these single-use items ending up in our waterways and in the bodies of marine animals is alarming. Many businesses and places have started to take steps towards eliminating plastic straws. Businesses like Starbucks, McDonalds in the UK, Disney World, Sea World, Royal Caribbean, Marriott International, American Airlines, and Alaskan Airlines have all stopped providing plastic straws. Seattle is the first US city to ban plastic straws, stirrers, and utensils. The New York City Council plans to ban plastic straws by 2020. Other coastal cities like Monmouth Beach, NJ and Miami Beach, Fl have also banned plastic straws.

What's the harm in using plastic straws?

Everyday 500 million plastic straws are used around the world. Plastic straws are not recyclable, because they are so light weight they usually fall through mechanical recycling sorters. Straws that don't get recycled either make their way into landfills or into our waterways. If you don't already know, plastic in the ocean is a huge problem. Straws are so light weight that they stay at the surface of the water, where animals like sea turtles like to feed. If you haven't seen the viral video of the sea turtle suffering because of a plastic straw you can watch it here. The other issue with plastics in the ocean is that plastic never biodegrades, it photo-degrades, which means it only breaks down into smaller pieces with the help of the sun's UV rays. This creates micro-plastics and these micro-plastics makes up 94% of the great pacific garbage patch. Micro-plastics are mistaken as plankton that some fish and birds feed on, and that is how plastics are entering our food chain.

What can you do to help?

Next time your dining out, you can kindly request no straw with your beverages. If your someone who can't go straw-less you could bring your own reusable straw. I stopped using plastic straws on the first day of spring (March 21st, 2019). I started bringing my reusable straws to Dunkin' everyday and I realized how easy it was to say no to a straw and bring my own. I started selling my own reusable straw kits on April 22nd, 2019 and now more people I know are contributing to one less straw ending up in our oceans.

You can learn more about how to get a reusable straw kit here.