Banning Single Use Plastic Straws! Is It the Right Solution?

A movement to ban disposable plastic straws is sweeping China after gaining traction in cities and countries across the world, finding widespread attention after Starbucks announced it would phase out disposable straws by 2020.

Aided by a widespread desire for meaningful environmental change and a viral video of a sea turtle with a plastic straw stuck in its nose, plastic straw bans have been celebrated by individuals, companies, and legislators as a positive and necessary move towards widespread environmental change.

In 2015, plastic consumption worldwide totaled 300 million metric tonnes. That essentially means that for each one of the world’s 7.6 billion humans, we’re making 88 pounds of plastic a year. The packaging industry is still growing, according to Euromonitor, with flexible plastics leading the pack.

It may seem as though the quarter-of-an-inch diameter drinking straw is the least of our worries. But environmentalists say the fight’s got to start somewhere.

It’s not just food. Most plastic turns to trash after a single use. If you think you’re doing Mother Earth a solid by slinging your used plastics into the recycling, think again. More than 79% of all plastic waste ends up in landfills, or gets stuck in the natural world, regardless of which sorting bin you put it in. Another 12% gets burned up in incinerators, adding to particulate matter to the atmosphere. Only a remaining 9% is actually recycled.

It’s wonderful if Starbucks is going to phase out straws, that’s a great start.

And in May last year, McDonald’s announced that more than 1,300 of its restaurants were phasing out plastic straws in favor of paper ones.

McDonald’s plastic straws are really gradually replaced by paper straws now.

However, paper straws seem horrible.

Many people complained that the paper straws and milkshake don’t get together.

They even want to bring back the plastic straws.

In the meantime, some netizens commented that those people should stop complaining about paper straws and please get a life. Because there are much more important things in this world than the material that straws are made from.

What is your opinion?

Small plastic straws are difficult to be picked up by the waste disposer and are recycled. Therefore, the final fate of most plastic straws falls into landfills or floats on the ocean.

At the same time, these toxic and harmful micro-plastic granules will accumulate through the food chain and may eventually enter the human body, threatening human health.

As for us, we should decrease using plastic stuff.

Protect our planet.

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