SAY BYE TO PLASTIC STRAWS
Deep Cove merchants ban them
Deep Cove merchants are saying goodbye and good riddance to plastic straws.
Starting today, patrons will have to suck it up if they want a plastic straw in any of the Cove’s restaurants and cafés after merchants committed to going plastic-straw free.
“It’s wonderful to see the community come together around this,” said Jennifer McCarthy, owner of BluHouse Market & Cafe.
“Together it makes a much bigger impact, more than if we were just one or two.”
The initiative would make Deep Cove the first community in Metro Vancouver to ditch plastic straws — the result of months of advocacy work by a few local business owners who felt it was imperative to act, especially as the number of visitors to the popular waterfront community continues to grow.
“For such a tiny community, the amount of waste we are making is increasing as traffic continues to increase,” said Megan Curren, owner of retail store Room6.
“Practically speaking, our trash bins are overflowing.”
Their businesses get inundated with plastic, said both McCarthy and Curren. They decided to focus on plastic straws because they’re something many people can make do without.
Fifteen food-based businesses, plus Deep Cove Theatre, which uses plastic straws in its concessions, are on board — though it wasn’t as easy as they thought it would be, said McCarthy: “How do you get the message across in an environment where costs are going up all the time where you tell them you are going to have to voluntarily pay more?”
To help ease the transition, especially for patrons who may have a disability that requires them to drink from a straw, paper straws will be provided to merchants to offer on request.
It will be up to individual businesses in the future to decide whether to cover the extra cost or charge customers an extra fee for the straw. Plastic straws cost about one cent each, while paper straws cost five cents, a five-fold increase that adds up to a significant cost, noted Curren.
The key thing is to change consumer behaviour and break people out of their addiction to the convenience plastic provides, said McCarthy.
Her café, which does a brisk trade in the summer selling smoothies and iced coffee, has already stopped providing their compostable straws automatically with drinks and has seen a drop in straw use of about 50 per cent.
Deep Cove merchants and Ocean Ambassadors Canada, which works to educate young people about the impact of plastics on oceans and marine life, are holding a launch for the initiative tonight.
The sold-out event includes a screening of the documentary A Plastic Ocean and a presentation by micro-plastics expert Rhiannon Moore. Funds raised at the event will go toward supporting merchants.
McCarthy and Curren say ditching plastic straws is just the first step.
“We want this to be the first step in our long-term approach to reducing single-use plastics in the Cove and in the world,” said Curren, who is working with her store’s suppliers and vendors to stop using plastic packaging.
McCarthy said she’d like to see the District of North Vancouver adopt a single-use plastics ban, similar to what other municipalities like Montreal and Victoria have done.
The no-straw movement appears to be gaining steam around the world. Malibu, Calif., has banned the use and sale of plastic straws and utensils, while the U.K. is mulling a countrywide ban on straws.
In Vancouver, some restaurants and bars have already barred the use of straws or are making them available by request only. The city is set to unveil its plan to deal with single-use items like disposable plastic bags and cups this month.
According to a report by the World Economic Forum, oceans could hold more plastics than fish by weight by 2050.