I’ve never been a straw user, but frankly we bought some reusable metal straws (my partner uses them), some reusable portable utensils, and regularly carry our portable coffee cups when we go out in public. All things that can fit in a purse or bag. We don’t find it an inconvenience and we like that perhaps in a small way we are reducing the amount of generated waste.
Frequently we end up with a solution which is even worse for the environment. For instance, we switched from single use plastic bags to multiple use plastic bags in new york. I spent $8 dollars on buying 4 multiuse polypropylenes bags, not a big deal, but 2 of the four bags are already beginning to rip after 5 or 6 uses. In order for the the reusable bags to be as environmentally friendly as the single use bags they need to be reused atleast a couple of hundred times. So my grocery shopping is now a couple of bucks more expensive for me (whatever) and environmentally less friendly.
Straws are likely the same deal, plastic straws are probably more environmentally friendly than their metal straws.
No, they're not. Full stop. It's not just the production of the straws that matters, it's their post-use effects. They can choke birds and fish, pierce stomachs or guts, and eventually become microplastics that get eaten by plankton and fish since the plastic doesn't degrade on a timeframe relevant to human or even generational lifespans.
Tons of plastic waste ends up in the ocean, with the bulk coming from China and Southeast Asia. However, the concern with straws is the harm they cause to local wildlife at their macroscopic sizes.
Throwing it in a bin reduces the amount of trash that ends up in the ocean, but wind, homeless, gravity, can all result in trash ending up outside of the bin and on a path into the water.
Tossing out "homeless" for a reason trash ends up in the ocean really undermines your point and makes you seem like an asshole. Maybe I'm naive, but I've never seen _anyone_ intentionally take things out of the trash and toss them somewhere else. I can't imagine this happening (caused by any human) on a scale where it is worth mentioning before mentioning negligent littering.
Sarcasm aside, metal straws don't float, and fish and birds don't try to eat them. And unless you have some fancy expensive metal straws, in a corrosive sea salt environment the ones generally available rust in a matter of years.
Bioplastic straws are a superior solution.
Compostable straws can be made of bioplastics, but require high temperatures to biodegrade, meaning generally temperatures not found in nature (outside of volcanic areas).
My kids are so indoctrinated into these habits that my four-year-old asked me which trash bin to use for a tiny spec of crust from her eye (compost was the correct answer). These habits—even over a lifetime—will have a negligible impact. But I'm confident that my kids will factor environmental issues highly for decisions (such as voting) that actually do matter.
I think one of the problems is that people very much overestimate how big a problem "plastic bags at the grocery store are", because they're big, and white, and loud when they move around, and they're something so many people deal with. But they're also whisps of plastic nothingness. Save up all the bags you shop with, and see how long it takes for them to equal the mass, of, say, this: https://www.amazon.com//dp/B07HKV9339 You're going to be saving for a long time... and you're going to be saving long past the point where your best efforts have squashed those bags into the same apparent volume.
Plastic bags and straws aren't the problem. "Solving" the not-a-problem is burning people's limited give-a-damn on pointless wastes of time, and psychologically rewarding people for doing useless things to their own detriment that helps nobody.
1. Restructure society to become carbon neutral.
2. Restructure society to end throwaway culture.
I understand that to some people 2 is a secondary value derived from 1. For me, both are independent primary values, not derived from any other deeper value, or from each other.
I am fairly certain that, while local moves towards the two values sometimes seem in conflict, I think on the global scale, they are roughly in the same direction. So yes, I will buy cotton bags every half decade or so, so I don't use and throw away a minuscule volume of plastic bags, that are a symbol of the throwaway culture.
It is not clear to me if you are advocating for everyone to not use plastic bags. If you choose to do net very-slight harm to the environment to take a stand against some thing you find aesthetically displeasing, that's find by me, because we're talking negligible values on all sides here. No sarcasm; I truly have no objection. We all tend to spend much greater on things much sillier. And you're putting your skin in the game, at your expense. No sweat.
If you are advocating that everybody should do so, that is at the very least questionable, though, and downright wrong at the government level. If the government is going to decide that environmental damage is a concern it has, which is fine, then at the very least they could use those powers to actually help the environment, rather than helping some particular people's sense of aesthetics, and their sense of aesthetics at other people's actions no less, while failing at their stated goals.
My point which I articulated poorly is that when we push environmental friendly things we should push for things which are more/actually effective, e.g. make sure you use your car for as long as possible, and build smaller, well insulated, energy efficient homes.
I don't carry any water for plastic straws — haven't used them regularly since I was a kid — but it's easily imaginable that the political capital expended to ban them would have yielded better results for the environment elsewhere.
Heck, it's very possible that your metal straws themselves caused more environmental damage than the average man's lifetime straw consumption. Or not.
Also, Cash for Clunkers was as much (or more) an economic stimulus program as an environmental program.
An analogy is "Why would promoting handwashing to combat aids be a bad thing? It gets people focused on health."
Well? Do tell. While hand washing or eliminating plastic bags or eliminating plastic straws might not be the end-all be-all of good environmental stewardship or good health practices, I'm a bit dumbfounded how they can be seen in a negative light. It's flu season, be cognizant of hand washing and cover your mouth when you cough - how's that a harmful message again?
Well, you don't get to say you're helping to combat aids by giving out that type of advice. If you try, you are "promoting bikeshedding and signaling contests" instead of doing anything productive [to solve the AIDS problem].
The point is these measures solidify indoctrination. Let us tell you what to do. “We’ll think it through for you. Here is what’s good.” And as kids grow up they grow up trusting these voices telling them what’s best for them. It undercuts their critical thinking skills. It’s one big “YEA”.
Rarely are they asked to follow the rabbit hole or all the unintended consequences. But it makes people feel good about “having agency” and “doing good”.
mandatory helmet laws are dumb nanny stuff. if someone wants to split their skull on a curb, it's their own business. riding a bike/scooter at low speeds is not particularly risky anyway, and such laws add friction to a healthy and environmentally friendly means of transportation.
They can also choke fish and birds if they get caught in the throats, or poke holes in the stomachs/guts of fish and birds.
Plastic straw bans may not make much sense in the Midwest, but they do matter in coastal areas.
70.4% of the mass found in the gyre is from fishing-related items (with a whopping 58.3% of mass from fishing buoys alone).
Straws and plastic bags are targeted because they are the low hanging fruit that is easy to change. Because people are highly resistant to change, even when it's just a mild inconvenience, and addressing a small part of the problem is better than doing nothing at all.
I don’t think do. What makes you think that. Unless you consider 1% substantial.
Banning plastic straws infuriates me. Paper straws are trash. I carry my own plastic ones and use them as needed.
I’m pretty sure I’m at a greater risk of throat cancer now, and other than that I’m not too sure why you would want them.
I do choose to drink coffee and don't brush immediately after and accept the risk to my teeth.
I was worried about the effect of soda on my teeth so I stopped drinking it.
cold drinks = use straw
Now, they're shamed for or outright prevented from using the accessibility devices that allow them to actually, y'know, consume necessary and lifegiving liquid.
I'm not aware of any studies confirming or denying their advantage in the era of modern food safety standards.
This is what bothers me is that it prohibits me from using straws for a nonissue.
You can think that's OK (I guess), but you can't pretend that preventing permanent harmful waste is only about feeling good. It's about preventing permanent harmful waste. Feeling good can be a little bonus I suppose.
Straws in the ocean were dumped there by careless people. Since you care about the environment, there's no way you're using a paper straw so you can continue dropping it into the stormwater drain without the problems that you used to cause when you dropped plastic straws into the drain. The very people who choose paper straws are the ones that can't make any difference because they weren't the problem in the first place.
But, in the end it has very minimal impact on the effects we’re trying to suppress but on the other hand is very good at getting people used to doing things without thinking through issues independently. It primes kids for ready-made ideology.