Straw bans a foolish idea

It’s wise to keep an eye on the progressive metropolises around the country so that we accurately can forecast what cockeyed, politi-cultural movement is set to touch down in Massachusetts.

A quick look at the national news hints at statewide plasticstraw legislation as the initiative du jour.

Last Thursday, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law an order that prohibits full-service restaurants from automatically handing out single-use plastic straws.

Restaurants that don’t comply will get two infractions without punishment but on the third violation they’ll face a fine of up to $300 annually.

The ban is a result of pressure from environmental and other left-wing organizations that look to keep ocean pollution from killing fish and whales and other sea creatures. Brown said in a statement, “Plastics, in all forms — straws, bottles, packaging, bags, etc. — are choking the planet.”

Both San Francisco and Seattle have already had total plastic straw bans on the books, not surprisingly.

There are a number of restaurants in Boston that have stopped distributing plastic straws automatically or have switched to reusable straws, and the Lowell and other municipalities are looking into similar practices.

We can all agree that we should be good custodians of our planet and that pollution of any sort is not a good thing, but this particular effort was ill-conceived and is particularly foolish, if not harmful.

According to a 2015 study published in the American Association for the Advancement of Science journal, in the oceans, straws make up about 4 percent of the plastic trash by piece, but far less by weight. Straws on average weigh so little — about one sixty-seventh of an ounce or .42 grams — that all those billions of straws add up to only about 2,000 tons of the nearly 9 million tons of plastic waste that yearly hit the waters.

In other words, straws are not the real troublemakers. Much of the animus directed toward the practical plastic syphons comes as a result of a 2015 viral video in which a turtle has ingested a straw.

Straws are not the prime culprit in the problem of plastic pollution in our oceans, and they also happen to have special utility day-to-day. Many disabled people cannot drink out of a glass without a straw. Hospitals, for obvious reasons, rely upon them heavily.

Straws are not yet banned in Massachusetts, nor should they be. We should reject any push to mandate intrusive laws until every other option has been exhausted. Undoubtedly, as the market’s appetite grows for an alternative to single-use plastic straws, innovation rather than legislation will be the best way forward.