Companies and Cities Joining the Movement Away from Plastic Straws

Posted by: Eileen Flynn // Student

The first time I was exposed to the dangers of plastic waste negatively affecting my environment was when I was 14 years old. I watched a video of a turtle, rescued from our oceans, with a plastic straw stuck in his nose. “Say No to Plastic Straws” was the headline to this viral video and was the start to a very powerful movement that would eventually encourage cities and world-wide companies to take action. Plastic waste covers our beaches and oceans and are harmful to more sea creatures than just turtles. McDonald’s reported that their restaurants use about 1.8 million straws a day in the UK. Listening to their customer’s request, McDonalds throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland agreed to ban all plastic straws from its restaurants by this September, 2018. Instead, paper straws will now be distributed with every drink. The Strawless Ocean campaign is an organization that works to bring awareness about the dangers of plastic in our environment. They urge companies and citizens to fight back, because if not they predict that there could be more plastic in the ocean than fish by the year 2050. On Sunday June 24th, Seattle made the next headline supporting the movement. Seattle brought attention to the cause in America by becoming the first U.S. major city to ban plastic drinking straws. The city hopes that its citizens will understand the transition to paper straws and will start to make other small decisions that help their environment. Pretty soon after Seattle made their announcement, Starbucks followed in their founding-city’s footsteps. By 2020, Starbucks promised that their stores will be free from plastic straws. With two big companies and a major city joining the fight against plastic straws, there is no doubt that there is going to be less plastic straws cluttering our environment. Of course there has been some speculation in response to the recent outburst of environmental heroism. Some claim that Starbucks’ new plastic coverings that are being made to replace the plastic straws, are made with more plastic than their old plastic straw/lid combo. Is this more of a publicity stunt or is Starbucks actually moving away from unnecessary plastic waste? A major advantage to this movement is the awareness that these major influencers are bringing to this important change. Hopefully this is a big step in the right direction for our future environment. For more information visit these sites: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/07/01/seattle-becomes-first-major-u-s-city-to-ban-straws/?utm_campaign=upd_dmt&utm_medium=social-media&utm_source=twitter&utm_term=.4ce706d587f5 https://www.strawlessocean.org/ https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-44492352 https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/starbucks-to-eliminate-plastic-straws_us_5b435614e4b09e4a8b2f37c5?ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000048 https://www.rateitgreen.com/green-building-community/discussions//no-more-plastic-straw-please-we-throw-away-500-million-plastic-straws-daily/3076