Going round bend to get rid of plastic
Two million paper straws have arrived in Christchurch to help muscle plastic ones out of drinks throughout the country.
Lay them end to end and they would reach the space station, guesses importer Helen Rupp.
She is owner of The Rubbish Whisperer, a business that backs an anti-plastic stance by offering paper alternatives.
Rupp and New Zealand’s Hospitality Association have joined forces to get single-use plastic straws out of bars, restaurants and cafes.
The association is making a big push to get members to stop using plastic straws by the end of 2018, and Rupp is offering a discounted deal to help them break the plastic habit.
It’s estimated that New Zealanders use 200 million plastic straws a year. The straws are an environmental nightmare because they are usually made from materials like polypropylene and polystyrene, which can take hundreds of years to degrade.
Moving to paper straws is actually going back to the original modern straw, which was invented in the 1880s in the United States. Much cheaper plastic straws took over from the 1970s.
Cost is the big issue. Single-use plastic straws cost about half a cent, while biodegradable paper straws cost 4 to 5 cents each.
Rupp said the answer was to combine paper straws with a ‘‘straws on request’’ policy.
That could lead to a 70 per cent drop in straw use, and the savings went towards the environmentally better paper straws.
‘‘A lot of paper straws are not very good quality and when we started selling paper straws there was a bad image around them,’’ she said.
‘‘These paper straws are thicker and have been tested to last 20 times as long as other ones. So you can use them properly without worrying about them falling apart.’’
One other plus is they also bend. As for cost, she said comparisons were unfair because the cost of environmental damage was not taken into account with plastic straws. She said paper straws were a way restaurants and cafes could openly show customers they were trying to be good to the environment. Hospitality Association environment/sustainability advisory board head Nick Keene said the 3000 members across the country had been challenged to go plastic straw-free by the end of the year.
He said it was a big ask, but with the availability of paper straws, it could be possible.
Keene said most regions were showing good support for dropping plastic straws.
‘‘I’m getting emails daily from Twizel to Kaitaia about how do we go about it and what’s the best way. In Auckland, one member has 22 bars and he is using up to 1 million straws a year and he has changed out.’’
Most are moving to straws on request.
‘‘We are businesses and we have got mouths to feed and people to pay, so it is crucial that it is financially viable and have to find a way to make it so.’’
By far the biggest users of plastic straws were the corporate fast food businesses and they were not association members.
But Keene said that was no excuse.
‘‘That we won’t be plastic straw-free until they (fast food) start doing it is not a good enough reason for us not to start.
‘‘Starting is our best course of action. Other countries are doing a better job than us at delivering plastic-free alternatives and just being plastic free.’’