Straws next in line for banned plastics
Lawmaker proposes limiting use of product at sit-down restaurants to reduce litter
Three years after California banned single-use plastic bags, a state lawmaker is attempting to make plastic straws the next taboo item.
Assemblyman Ian Calderon, D-Whittier (Los Angeles County), introduced a bill this month that would make it a crime for a waiter at a sit-down restaurant to provide a plastic straw without being asked for one first.
As currently written, the bill includes misdemeanor penalties for servers who violate the proposed law — up to a $1,000 fine and six months in jail — but Calderon’s office said he is in the process of amending those out of the bill.
“It will be a law that will need to be complied with, but not with those penalties,” Calderon wrote on Twitter after facing backlash over the proposed penalties.
Calderon said what he wants is a bill that reduces the number of plastic straws that become unmanageable litter and waste. And AB1884 is a step in the right direction, he said.
The bill would not apply to fast-food restaurants, cafes or delis, or any takeout orders, where straws are far more likely to be improperly disposed of. It’s far short of a ban on plastic straws that environmental groups are pushing for, but its limited scope may make it easier to accept for potential opponents, such as the restaurant industry.
“Really, what’s at stake here is a few moments of convenience creating a years-long environmental threat,” said David Lewis, executive director of the group Save the Bay.
Some restaurants and bars have already taken steps to cut back or eliminate plastic-straw use. It has been almost a year since Pagan Idol tiki bar in San Francisco’s Financial District stopped using plastic straws, instead finding a compostable paper straw that wouldn’t end up in the bay and other waterways.
Beverage manager Daniel Parks said that in the time since Pagan Idol made the change, he’s seen a number of other bars and restaurants switch too, a move environmentalists say is needed to curb one of the leading causes of plastic pollution in the state.
“It started with plastic bags, and this is an important thing to get away from, too,” Parks said.
Lewis said what was learned from California’s plastic-bag ban was that cities and counties had to take up the fight first before state lawmakers could muster enough votes in the Legislature.
“It took years for the Legislature to pass a ban on plastic bags,” Lewis said. “I don’t know if the same will be true of straws.”
Calderon’s bill, AB1884, is similar to city ordinances adopted in San Luis Obispo and Davis last year. Stan Gryczko, the assistant public works director in Davis, said that since the ordinance went into effect in the city in September, there have been no complaints.
“It’s been very quiet,” Gryczko said.
Manhattan Beach (Los Angeles County) has a ban on all disposable plastics, including straws. Berkeley is considering a ban on plastic straws, while Santa Cruz does not allow plastic straws in to-go orders. Other cities are considering limiting the use of plastic straws, including Los Angeles.
In San Francisco, the Golden Gate Restaurant Association is partnering with the Surfrider Foundation to highlight alternatives to plastic straws during its Restaurant Week, which began Monday.
Golden Gate Restaurant Association executive director Gwyneth Borden said that kind of voluntary approach to solving the environmental issue with straws is far more palatable than a state mandate.
“Not everything needs to be legislated,” Borden said. “The industry will be more creative and innovative if given the opportunity to come up with a solution.”
Borden questioned how AB1884 would be enforced.
“Will there be secret straw investigators?” Borden joked.
“They don’t need to create a law around it,” she said. “You aren’t really even tackling where the mass usage happens. The segment of the restaurant industry that is struggling the most is full-service restaurants, and this law singles them out.”
Sharokina Shams, a vice president at the California Restaurant Association, said her industry group has not had a chance to look at the impacts of the bill or take a position yet.
“But I can say that the assemblyman’s approach is preferable to an outright ban of a product,” Shams said. “If it ultimately supports the idea of helping the environment while also allowing consumers and businesses some cost-effective choices, then it could be workable.”
Those that have stopped using plastic straws, such as Pagan Idol, said they did not want to be part of a serious problem.
Millions of straws are used once and then discarded in the United States each day, with some operations like the National Park Service saying some 500 million straws are discarded a day. And yet straws are not recycled, in part because of the type of plastic they are made from, and because it’s too costly.
Straws end up in landfills, and when improperly disposed of, oceans and waterways, where they can break down into smaller pieces that are mistaken for food by fish and other marine life.
The California Coastal Commission’s annual coastal cleanup days — where the type of trash found is logged — have found plastic straws and stirrers the sixth-most-common type of litter on state beaches. Between 1989 and 2014, the cleanup efforts yielded 736,000 straws and stirrers.
“We are aware of the problem we’ve created with plastic and wanted to get away from it as much as possible,” said Parks, the beverage manager at Pagan Idol.
Parks said there is a bit of a learning curve when a new customer uses a paper straw for the first time.
“It’s almost like you have to teach them,” Parks said.
Don’t handle the straw, he recommends. Paper straws are not great for poking at ice or leaving in a drink for too long.
“That challenges our bartender to make the drinks absolutely delicious,” Parks said.