Will dumping plastic straws do much good?

PRI’s The World

Just how big a waste problem are plastic straws?

Consider this: Each year, the Ocean Conservancy organizes its International Coastal Cleanup day. “In 2017, we collected over 600,000 straws off the beach,” said Emily Woglom, executive vice president with the Ocean Conservancy.

A big problem is that straws aren’treally recyclable.

“They’re small, it’s easy for them to leak out of the waste management system and so they often escape into the ocean,” Ms. Woglom said. “And once they’re in the ocean, they last forever, they float, it’s easy for that to interact with wildlife like turtles.”

Last week, Starbucks announced plans to phase out single-use plastic straws by 2020. The world’s largest beverage chain is moving toward recyclable plastic lids at its more than 28,000 stores worldwide. Alternative-material straws will be made available at Starbucks locations. For some, including many disabled people, the straw is more than just a small luxury; it’s a necessity.

Ms. Woglom said when she heard about Starbucks’ commitment, which the company estimates will eliminate 1 billion straws a year, she was “thrilled,” but with a caveat.

“As long as this is a first step, I think it’s a step that’s worth celebrating. But it absolutely needs to be the beginning of a journey, not the end.”

Starbucks is one company phasing out one product. The overall problem of plastic in the ocean remains massive — an estimated 8 million metric tons of it gets into the water each year.

“That is the equivalent of one city garbage truck, per minute, every minute of every day,” Ms. Woglom said. “So that’s a lot of plastic going into the ocean.”

Straws are about 4 percent of that.

Plastic straws have been getting some attention recently as an ecological villain. The average disposable straw is used just 20 minutes. Ms. Woglom said the movement is gaining steam, in part, because stopping our use of plastic straws is something we can feel empowered to do right now.

The anti-straw movement has even caught on in Hollywood with the celebritydriven “Stop Sucking” campaign.

And movements like this are working. A handful of cities — Seattle, many in California — recently banned plastic straws. Soon, they won’t be available in Taiwan, on Alaska Airlines flights, or at a McDonald’s in the UK or Ireland.

Environmentalists say it’ll take governments, consumers and companies all working on the issue. And one sure way to push companies in that direction is to show that there are viable alternatives.

At Alden & Harlow in Cambridge, Mass., they serve modern American food prepared tapas style and drinks with a stainless steel straw. Waters arrive with no straw.

“Once you start crunching the numbers for something that you use every day in a high-volume restaurant, it gets to be pretty alarming. We were talking — upwards of 100,000 plastic straws a year we would go through,” said Daniel Pontius, restaurant beverage director.

Mr. Pontius said customers prefer the new metal straws, which they switched to three months ago. He said customers report that they’re classy, stay cold and don’t have a plastic taste.

Still, switching to stainless steel brings some hassles. “We had to get pipe cleaners because you want to make sure that no debris gets caught in there,” Mr. Pontius said.