In the wake of the 48th anniversary of Earth Day yesterday, among the hottest environmental issues of the day appears to be criminalizing the plastic drinking straw.
The import of the “war on drinking straws” must be true because this week there is a viral video viewed on YouTube more than 5.5 million times of a 2015 incident where a Texas A&M University research team in Costa Rica found a plastic straw stuck in the nose of a sea turtle.
Then there is the widely tossed around statistic that Americans use 500 million plastic drinking straws a day, but upon investigation it appears that number is suspect and had as its basis a 2011 environmental group’s print ad, but no science. There is apparently a single manufacturing facility in Virginia that produced nearly 4 Billion straws last year, most of them small plastic straws for juice boxes.
In response to the current hue and cry over one of the oldest eating utensils, the California cities of San Luis Obispo and Davis both have gone as far as enacting “straws on request” laws and Manhattan Beach has a law banning all disposable plastics. Also, Seattle has enacted a ban on plastic utensils, including straws, going into effect in July.
But potentially impacting more than the populations of those few cities, the state of California has pending, Assembly Bill 1884, that would prohibit sit down food facilities from providing a single use plastic straw to customers unless specifically requested by the customer.
Criminalizing the distribution of drinking straws, under the guise of environmental policy, in a state that decriminalized cannabis distribution, appears foolish to many and of concern to even more that this misguided idea might spread East.
The origin of the first drinking straw is not known, but it dates to more than 5,000 years ago. There is a gold straw in a Giza Pyramid that dates to 2589 BC. We are told Sumerians used straws to drink their beer 3,000 years ago to reach the solids at the bottle of the brew.
In America it became fashionable in the 1800s to drink from an inexpensive and easily created rye grass straw. The first modern drinking straw was likely the creation of American inventor Marvin C. Stone who began selling paper straws in 1888. And while straws have remained popular, the 1960 era of The Graduate, and “a great future in plastics” has resulted straws becoming part of our culture.
There appears to be little if any science supporting the criminalization of drinking straws? Anti-straw advocacy activists (.. yes, that is a real thing) appear focused on post consumer pollution of discarded straws after a single use, but they don’t seem concerned about the associated ‘less than ideally biodegradable’ drink boxes, usually 6 layers of paper lined with aluminum foil, nor is there a hue and cry because plastic drinking straws are typically made from polypropylene, contributing to petroleum consumption?
There are biodegradable drinking straws on the market, but corn based straws have not proven popular. There are paper straws as well as bamboo and straw straws. Glass straws have always had a place, but have issues of their own.
But maybe the real issue is that drinking straws are not actually the single greatest environmental threat to life as we know it on this planet?
In 1970 when Earth Day was created U.S. rivers were on fire and smog choked our cities. 38 years later most do not think that the environmental apocalypse will begin with a drinking straw, even one disposed of with a juice drink box in California. In 2018, possibly elected officials can find another boogeyman as a last straw for rational environmental policy?
