A movement to ban plastic straws is gaining publicity and trending. Why? It seems as if Starbucks after proclaiming it would dispose disposable straws by 2020 gained the attention of the public. This is a big issue! Why? You may ask. Well, plastic straws are an aid for people of all sorts who have disabilities.
However, “widespread desire for meaningful environmental change and a viral video” of a sea turtle with a plastic straw in its nose. Plastic straw bans “have been celebrated by individuals, companies, and” powerful leaders “as a positive and necessary move towards environmental change.” Plastic straws is like a first step to reducing plastic waste. However, is this true? Let’s investigate this a bit further.
According to a report by (BAN), plastic straws and stirrers comprised about 7% of plastic items found along the California coastline. Compared to plastic bags “at 9% or plastic bottle caps at 17%” it’s significant. However, “when taken by weight, a report by Jambeck Research Group places plastic straws at only .03% of aggregate plastic in the oceans themselves, suggesting that straws’ lightness and buoyancy lead them to end up overrepresented on the coastline”.
What’s even more concerning is that, a recent survey by Ocean Cleanup. It estimated that nearly “half of the plastic waste found in the oceans’ largest garbage patch comes from fishing nets”. These numbers point to one thing! The bans have a way to harm the elderly and disabled. Also, they bring no dramatic reductions in plastic that corporate polluters make.
While plastic straws are popular they were originally invented as a “disability aid and used in hospitals”. Joseph B. Friedman created “and sold” the first disposable straw “to help reclined patients, as well as people with assorted other disabilities”. They are an “inexpensive, temperature-resistant, sturdy, and sanitary alternative to the reusable silicone feeding tubes which were in heavy rotation before their advent”.