Plastic straws pose environmental hazard

Ubiquitous plastic straws have drawn the ire of America’s environmental stewards for good reason.

Plastic straws have drawn the ire of America’s environmental stewards for good reason.

The tubes — for all but the disabled, elderly or injured — are entirely luxury items.

Yet the plastics will take at least 300 years to decompose, are seldom recycled, never reused and ubiquitous at restaurants, bars, convenience stores, and coffee shops.

Straws are a small part of the problem but the debate around them is a healthy one for our planet, even if it oversimplifies a complex issue.

We applaud those waging the uphill battle to reduce single-use disposable plastics.

Getting people thinking about their waste isn’t easy.

In Colorado, Chaney Skilling reported for The Denver Post last week that Lola Coastal Mexican restaurant is saying adios to straws unless customers specifically request them, and at Bar Helix in RiNo you’ll be sipping more than your Moscow mule through a copper straw.

That’s exactly the kind of voluntary action that will raise awareness of how small plastics consumption adds up over the course of a year, a decade and a lifetime.

Harlin Savage with EcoCycle told The Denver Post last week: “The straws I think are really an icon, the canary in the coal mine that points to a bigger problem.”

The problem is that it takes resolve and commitment to avoid using singleuse plastics.

Take a moment to think about the milk cartons, yogurt containers, sandwich bags, plastic grocery bags, water or soda bottles or other plastic containers that land in our trash or recycle bins every day.

If you buy fruit and vegetables at the store, odds are you slip them into a small plastic bag to go into a bigger plastic bag just to make it home.

Is reducing plastics such a difficult a task, however, that it goes beyond personal responsibility?

Aspen, Crested Butte and Vail feel that’s the case. Those communities have implemented 10 to 20-cent fees for disposable bags. Denver proposed a 5-cent fee in 2013.

Fees really do compel people to bring their reusable bags to the store. Part of the appeal of Denver’s proposed fee was that the revenue would have been dedicated in part to public education programs.

Far better than using a stick for good behavior would be voluntary compliance because of an understanding of the issue.

If we market bans and fees as a simple solution, widespread change in behavior will be less likely to occur.

Changing consumer habits only comes when the masses believe the problem is real and a solution exists.

A voter approved tax on one-time use plastics — and the kind of political campaign that would require — would achieve the public buyin required to actually make a difference.

The problem is that it takes resolve and commitment to avoid using single-use plastics. Take a moment to think about the milk cartons, yogurt containers, sandwich bags, plastic grocery bags, water or soda bottles or other plastic containers that land in our trash or recycle bins every day.