Well yeah, each individual type of thing is going to be a small part of the overall problem. But if it's the most effective way to get people to care then I don't have a problem with singling out plastic straws, or balloons or whatever.

Straws are a good one to single out too because a vast number of them come from just a few major fast food chains, so if you get them to care you get rid of them relatively easily.

This strikes me as another form of whataboutism, like "oh you're only dealing with such a small part of the problem, what about all this other stuff you're not doing, obviously you you shouldn't even bother". If noone ever bothers with the individual parts then the whole problem is never going to stop.

Except straws make up less than a percent of ocean plastic, while almost half is fishing gear. Fishing is destroying the ocean for that and several other reasons. Even if we're wildly successful and completely outlaw straws and a dozen other things, the impact of the real problems is going to outweigh all of the former victories.

That might be true, but bringing it up in a conversation about a different solution to a different problem in a tone that suggests that people shouldn't be trying to use less plastic straws (especially when most of them have no connection to the fishing industry) isn't helpful.

If you care about it, talk about it in the context of fishing, don't just bring it up as a way to snarkily shut down people doing something good, no matter how small.

This is exactly the kind of "plausible deniability" tactics that people who actively push to disregard all environmental concerns use.

But for any sort of rational cost/benefit analysis, the plastic straw wins. Lower energy cost than a disposable paper straw, it works better, feels better, and (while I'm not positive of this) lower monetary cost too. And when you consider how few straws make it into the oceans from California, there are far more worthy targets. Or, to put it another way - banning plastic straws is a passable way to reduce the number of straws added to the ocean. It's a really shitty way to reduce plastic.

It's things like this (and opposition to nuclear, and refusal to consider geoengineering) that make people skeptical of the general environmental movement. After all, if this was such a huge problem... People would be trying to actually solve it instead of virtue signalling.

Not all plastic pollution is created equal. Plastic straws are especially dangerous for sea turtles, in the same way that balloons are dangerous for sea birds and 6-pack rings are dangerous to both. People didn't single out plastic straws to "virtue signal".

As for 'the plastic straw wins', I'm unconvinced. The energy cost might be lower, but none of your other reasons factor in environmental cost at all. I don't think any amount of 'feels good' is worth any amount of environmental damage.

Lastly, even if it were entirely symbolic (which it isn't) there's still value in that.

The "you're just virtue signalling" bullshit is infuriating. People need to consider the possibility that some other human beings actually have empathy, or different values to their own.

Bamboo straws for both home and bar use are pretty neat. I don't know if its true for children, but for grown men and women it feel better, at least. And those cost a less (especially if you already have small bamboo home and friend with woodwork equipement).

Well said. It makes sense to be outraged by environmental degradation. But it is good to channel our efforts to help in those places where it is most helpful by orders of magnitude.

That said, this article is one of the few that really changed my perception. I admit that I have released many balloons over the years, joyfully, with the assumption that latex biodegrades. Now that I see how empirically dangerous they are to seabirds, I won't be so joyful and will surely share the facts instead of releasing the balloons.

The plastic straw does not win vs just not having a straw.

> Straws are a good one to single out too because a vast number of them come from just a few major fast food chains

At least in SE Asia, this is untrue. Nearly every single place that serves food puts a straw in your drink. From street vendors to restaurants.

I can agree with you that we need to keep bothering until it stops, but on a personal level after living in SE Asia for the last 3 years, I'm honestly of the opinion of trash being a hopeless problem on a global level.

Do they serve with straws because people actually want to suck their drink through them or are they just included as a signal for service quality?

Over here in Germany (a country exceptionally delusional about being good at environmentalism) tiny plastic spoons have suddenly become a standard feature at ice cream vendors. The only reasonably explanation is that businesses feared falling behind, an irrational fear of a plastic spoon gap. If they all just stopped including them without asking at the same time, nobody would lose (except for plastics manufacturers and their distributors I guess)

Sure, but the article calls out a variety of statistics that imply that balloons disproportionately good at killing animals.

Also, not doing balloon releases has literally no real drawbacks. I we can't get affect change here, we're so fucked.

Yes, we are fucked.

Of course the article calls out statistics about balloons, because the article is about balloons. There is any number of ways that animals can die from trash.

You want to change things? Figure out a way to make biodegradable balloons less expensive than the rubber ones. Figure out a way to bio-engineer a bacteria that breaks down the rubber ones.

Reality is that getting people to stop releasing balloons, worldwide, isn't going to happen from a blog post or any amount of education or laws discouraging it.

> Figure out a way to make biodegradable balloons less expensive than the rubber ones

That's easy: Tax rubber balloons so they're more expensive than biodegradable ones, done.

The article says they're the main cause of death due to litter for seabirds.

It may not be a huge impact, but it's one of the easiest things to solve. It's just pointlessly messy and doesn't need to be a thing.

And like most problems we approach them in small, manageable steps.