The Final Straw? Soon, They Hope
Christine Figgener studies marine turtles, and in August 2015 she posted a video of one getting a plastic straw removed from its nostril. The clip went viral — over 40 million people have viewed it on YouTube — and a crusade against plastic straws began.
“It was never just about the straw,” said Ms. Figgener, a Ph.D. candidate in marine biology at Texas A&M University. “The straw was supposed to be a symbol, a poster child. It’s a low-hanging fruit.”
Starbucks plans to be plasticstraw-free by 2020, replacing straws with paper or compostable plastic options. Other materials, like bamboo, hay, pasta and meat (for Bloody Marys) are becoming common at bars and restaurants, The Times reported.
“We’re getting to the point where if you use plastic, you get shamed,” said Emma Rose Cohen, one of the founders of FinalStraw, which sells reusable, collapsible straws. “It’s like it’s the new smoking.”
But it is not just about the straw. Consumers, increasingly aware of the human impact on climate, are not only looking for ways to reduce their own waste but are also demanding that companies make an effort to protect the environment.
Other products being phased out include the toys fast-food chains use to lure their youngest customers. Burger King has vowed to stop giving out plastic toys with children’s meals in Britain, which the company says will reduce its annual plastic footprint by more than 270,000 kilograms. It hopes to eliminate all non-biodegradable toys worldwide by 2025.
The European Union’s plans to ban single-use plastics by 2021 is prodding airlines, which produced about three million kilograms of cabin waste last year, to act.
Alaska Airlines, Ryanair and British Airways have committed to reducing waste, and Air France said it would eliminate 210 million single-use items by the end of this year.
“Get Onboard: Reduce.Reuse. Rethink,” an exhibition at the Design Museum in London through February 8, offers a look at what a less-wasteful flight might include. To help eliminate plastic, the design firm PriestmanGoode has created a tray table made of coffee grounds and husks, dishes made of wheat bran, lids made of banana leaves and a spork made of coconut palm wood.
But bringing these innovations to the market will be tricky, Megan Epler Wood, the director of Harvard’s International Sustainable Tourism Initiative, told The Times. There are no systems or facilities in place to recycle these goods, and any solution would require collaboration among airlines.
Some activists are not waiting for corporations to come up with solutions.
The Trash Pirates is a group of “zero waste consultants,” as one member described himself to The Times, working to make music festivals more sustainable.
The group formed in 2013 as a way to attend festivals for free by volunteering to clean up trash and perform other duties. It has grown into a small movement of recyclers and composters because of what Soph Nielsen described as the “existential crisis” of seeing “the event grounds when everyone is gone and it’s a sea of trash.”
A single day of Coachella in California, for example, generated 91,000 kilograms of trash in 2017. “You are baptized into compost,” Ms. Nielsen, a Trash Pirate, told The Times.
In one program, the group has worked with a recycler to turn cigarette butts — 200,000 collected and counting — into plastic pallets that can be used to make action-figures, backpacks and toothbrushes.
“The work isn’t going to stop, I’m almost scared of it,” said Caleb Robertson, a founder of the group. “But we are all still united by trash.”