“No plastic straw, please.”
These are easy words to remember and use the next time you’re at a restaurant or bar and order a drink.
Why?
Do you really need, or even use, the straw?
Or do you just sort of stir the ice cubes around in your glass with it once in a while? Or just take it out as soon as you receive your drink and leave it on the table completely unused? Pure plastic waste.
Be part of the “No Straw” movement, which is spreading and promoting non-plastic straws – recently the Bacardi spirits company instituted an in-house initiative to remove plastic straws and stirrers from all its events.
Most plastic straws end up in landfills or as pollution
Providing a plastic straw with a drink is automatic in many restaurants and bars. For those straws that are actually used, it’s likely just for minutes. Then most are thrown directly in the garbage (a very small proportion are recycled). They end up in a landfill, or worse, as waste that “leaks” out into the broader environment of urban and rural landscapes and waterways.
Eco-Cycle estimates 500 million plastic straws are used and discarded each day in the United States alone. That amounts to 175 billion each year just in the U.S.! To provide more perspective, Eco-Cycle notes:
500 million straws could fill over 127 school buses each day, or more than 46,400 school buses every year!
500 million straws per day is an average of 1.6 straws per person (in the US) per day. Based on this national average, each person in the US will use approximately 38,000 or more straws between the ages of 5 and 65.
Note that these estimates do not include all the straws attached to juice and milk cartons handed out in school lunchrooms and included in lunch boxes every day.
Most straws are made of polypropylene plastic (recycling symbol #5) – a petroleum-derived plastic that does not break down easily.
The Worldwatch Institute describes plastic straw production as follows:
Colorants, plasticizers (which make the plastic more flexible), antioxidants (which reduce the interactions between oxygen and the plastic), and ultraviolet light filters (which shield the plastic from solar radiation) are added. Straws are then individually wrapped in sleeves or bulk-packed in plastic or cardboard containers.
These plastic straws do not biodegrade, they photodegrade, breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces that are easily eaten by wildlife.
Because it is a tougher plastic, when polypropylene goes into the marine environment it absorbs toxins for a long time. These toxin-heavy plastics are then often ingested by and slowly poison wildlife.
Below is a powerful video that went viral of researchers removing a plastic straw from the nostril of a sea turtle (Warning: The video is graphic).
The effect of plastic straw pollution on wildlife is real and ubiquitous.
If you really want a straw, why not carry your own plastic-free reusable one with you?
Some folks really do prefer to use a straw, and that’s totally understandable. Using a straw can decrease the shock of the drink on your teeth, thus reducing teeth staining and erosion issues. Or maybe you just plain enjoy drinking through a straw.
We can help you out with alternatives to plastic straws. It’s easy to go non-plastic when it comes to straws.
Glass straws
We carry an array of sizes and styles of glass straws… short, tall, straight, bent, smoothie size, green dots (seriously). They are handmade with love from borosilicate glass in the U.S. by Glass Dharma and come with a lifetime guarantee. That doesn’t mean it’s not going to break if you hurl it at brick wall, but they are surprisingly tough. Glass is completely inert and utterly elegant. Cleaning brushes are also available.
Stainless steel straws
Stainless steel straws are the go-to plastic-free reusable straw for every use and occasion. You might be thinking, hmmm, those would be great for camping. Yes, they are, but so much more as well. Lunches, elegant cocktails, take-out, pool-side, surf-side, patios. Throw one in the purse, backpack, glove compartment so it’s always available.
They are made of 18-8 food grade 304 stainless steel and offered in packs of four as regular (bent) or smoothie (straight) size. Each pack also comes with a cleaning brush.
Support the important work of the Plastic Pollution Coalition with glass and stainless steel straw options!
The Plastic Pollution Coalition (PPC) is a global alliance of individuals, organizations and businesses working together to stop plastic pollution and its toxic impacts on humans, animals, the ocean and the environment. Take the PPC No Plastic Straw Pledge.
We sell both glass and stainless steel individual straws sporting the PPC logo. The glass ones are handmade with love in the U.S. from borosilicate glass by Simply Straws.
The proceeds from these sales directly support the PPC’s dynamic and wide-ranging work against plastic pollution.
(Aside: Check out their recent spectacular video on the plastic pollution issue — “Open Your Eyes” featuring Jeff Bridges)
Disposable straws
We don’t currently sell much in the way of disposable products. We made the decision to focus on durables, but that may well change as more and more interesting biodegradeable – and even edible – alternatives to plastics come on the market.
If you do need disposable straws for whatever reason, here are a couple of cool plastic-free options out there…
Straw Straws are all natural, organic, sustainably-farmed, 100% biodegradable, non-plastic straws produced in Maine, U.S. from handharvested, hand cut winter rye.
Aardvark Straws offers U.S.-made, biodegradable, FDA-approved, non-plastic paper straws in various colours, designs and sizes.
Ask yourself every time…
Do I really need this plastic straw that is being offered to me? Most likely the answer is no. And the environment doesn’t need it. Nor do the animals who may be the downstream recipients of the straw you accept and use for a few minutes before chucking it.
Why encourage the distribution of that wasteful, unnecessary piece of plastic you will put in your mouth to suck on for a few minutes before throwing it “away”? As is becoming increasingly clear everywhere, there is no “away”.
No plastic straw, please.
