$100 WINNING LETTER

Call for compromise

Your article “Five ways to quit plastic” (09.07.18) provides many useful tips on cutting down the use of plastic in our daily lives, but I felt a stab of metaphorical pain when I read “say no to plastic straws” and would like to add a rider for future articles – “unless you really need one”. As a middle-aged woman living with cerebral palsy, I can remember back to when plastic straws weren’t commonplace. Paper wax straws were okay for cold drinks but in my early years, for “hot” drinks, a cup had to be held to my lips, usually by a parent, for me to drink it because my hands shake. The drink was always lukewarm (so as not to burn me) and usually had to be consumed in one or two goes. When

I was 11 or 12, plastic straws became available and I could sip at will, and best of all, be independent in my intake. Also, I no longer had to decline drinks at friends’ homes or in public. Now, decades later, the plastic straw is being derided as a pollutant to our planet. Like all decent people, I do my best to recycle plastic items, and the straws I use are rinsed and reused many times before going to the landfill, not the ocean. I tried metal straws but they are unpleasant to use and hard on the mouth. Drinking should be a pleasant activity and I would ask that people be a little more empathetic to those of us (and there are many) who do not have the option of “saying no”

to plastic straws. A Franklin, Christchurch

The writer of the winning letter receives $100. The other letter wins a copy of Fishing for M a¯ ui by Wellington writer Isa Pearl Ritchie (Te Ra Aroha Press, RRP $34.99). A novel about food, family and mental illness.