Interesting stat. Personal experience? Almost all plastic in the ocean comes from fishing vessels and dumping of garbage into rivers in Asia. It would be interesting to know where those straws come from.

All of this plastic discussion recently was due to China banning the importation of plastic from recycling systems in the West. People were made aware of how their plastic recycling was not really working out like they thought and actually was causing harm to other people. Banning plastic straws is like a little penance that we can do to get our psyches back in balance and close that small window that opened in our awareness onto the vast amount of consumption all of us do.

And what percentage of the total weight or total volume of garbage collected do straws represent?

> Straws are the 7th most collected item during beach clean ups

So, not even on this count are they relevant?

You aren't even familiar with the statistic and you're willing to paint it as irrelevant?