Last (plastic) straw? Councilors hope so
Short of calling for ban, resolution inspired by IAIA student seeks to cut use of slow-to-degrade waste
Plastic bags. Circus animals. Smoking on the Plaza. Next up on the list of local no-nos: Straws? City Councilor Peter Ives has proposed a measure that would not quite outlaw plastic straws in Santa Fe but instead encourage businesses to discontinue their use.
An outright ban might follow. But Ives said it’s an easy green change — right now, a suggested change — that could make a real difference as slow-to-degrade plastic waste continues to choke the world’s waterways, marine life and landfills.
Still, it could encounter resistance, as legislative efforts to modify behavior have not always been warmly received in a city that’s as fickle as it is progressive.
The idea came from a community member who already has recruited several local restaurants and dozens of residents to her initiative, called Strawless Santa Fe.
Amber Morningstar Byars, 32, said she was inspired by the city of Seattle, where a “Strawless in Seattle” campaign enlisted high-wattage stars like Russell Wilson, the Seahawks’ quarterback, to sway diners and restaurants away
from plastic straws.
After hundreds of Emerald City businesses agreed to make the switch, Seattle officially authorized a ban, scheduled to take effect this summer. It will become the largest U.S. city to undertake such action; others include Malibu, Calif., and Miami Beach, Fla.
Byars, an artist and indigenous liberal studies major set to graduate from the Institute for American Indian Arts, for months has set up at a table outside various shopping centers and launched a website — sample hashtag:
#stopsucking — seeking individuals who will pledge not to use plastic straws and restaurants that will discontinue their use by the end of the year. Strawless Santa Fe is her senior project. “I actually had another senior project I worked on all last semester,” said Byars, a Santa Fe native. “I came in and I told the [chairman] seven days before this semester started that I wanted to change my project.
“He looked at me like I was crazy, but I went ahead and did it,” she said.
Byars said she’s earned signatures from more than 170 local individuals as well as management of “eight or nine” local restaurants, including Harry’s Roadhouse on Old Las Vegas Highway.
“I actually used to work there,” Byars said. “So I know how many straws they went through. That was a huge deal.”
City legislation was the next piece, and Byars found a receptive councilor in Ives, who is fond of bringing forward sustainability initiatives.
Plastic straws “are not compostable or biodegradable, but instead photodegrade into smaller pieces which are then ingested by land and sea animals and can eventually make their way into our food chain and clean water supply,” according to the resolution, co-sponsored by Councilor Signe Lindell.
The resolution references an online poll, conducted by Byars, that found 85 percent of Santa Fe respondents would want the city to ban straws.
If approved, the resolution would encourage businesses to provide alternatives. Those could include paper straws, reusable straws or no straws at all, Byars said. Another option is an “on-demand policy” through which a customer would have to request a straw to get one.
Ives said he did not want to begin with a ban, but first solicit support from local restaurants, bars, cafes, hotels and Santa Fe Public Schools.
If enough say-so materializes, an ordinance could be next, he said.
“I think it’s always nice to see how much we can do as a community without being prescriptive about it,” Ives said. “And if everyone gets behind it, thinks it’s a great idea, that would be a more appropriate time to look at some type of prescriptive action.”
Mindful of last year’s contentious proposed tax on sugary beverages, lingering discontent over the 2013 ban of plastic grocery bags, and the controversy stirred by the city’s attempt in 2015 to nix the sale of miniature bottles of alcohol, Ives suggested a slow-pedal approach to straws would be wiser.
“Those types of things, they always raise some controversy,” he said. “We can do it with a softer touch to begin with.”