They do make extra-fat straws!
If I’m sneaking a real good, thick milkshake outside my diet, i certainly don’t want to be reminded of extra-fat anything!
I agree that most likely the best option is just to put it in the trash where it will then end up in the landfill. That’s better than burning it, since that releases its carbon to the atmosphere. Incineration of trash is bad in two ways: release of carbon and release of other pollutants (heavy metals, for example) which are bad for people’s health.
But I have a better option, if you can handle it. Stop drinking drinks that they give you straws with. Most likely they are sugary soft drinks that are bad in several ways. Just drink water if you are thirsty. Not only is not drinking soda better for the environment, but also your health, waistline, and pocketbook.
You probably didn’t come here for this lecture, so I apologize in advance if you don’t like it. But perhaps it’s something you should think about.
Best I can make out, it’s largely due to surfers; straws float, are easily recognisable and are clearly not necessary for >99% of the population (some disabled people being the exception). They seems to accumulate in spots good for surfing (which often have multiple outdoor type cafes around), drawing the attention of the local surfers, who raised the issue as a common example of the stuff they find and started asking cafes not to give them out, which started as a local campaign in this area 5+ years ago and probably in other places as well.
When awareness of plastic in the ocean suddenly got more widespread a year or so ago, this existing campaign got picked up more widely, even though on a global level straws in the ocean are not an especially common problem, probably because it’s a nice simple solution. Even if it’s only a solution to 0.01% of the problem, people wanted do something to feel like they’re helping, and fixing the other 99.99% is complicated and can’t be boiled down to a simple message like ‘Say no to straws!’.
In Europe it started with the straws but both take-out containers and pre-packaged consumer products are under attack. Take out in aluminium or waxed paper are on the rise (both are perceived as more recyclable than plastic); there’s a trend toward reducing pre-packaging for groceries and dry goods (and they’ve already gotten to the grandmothers, I’ve started to see grandmas lecturing younger women on the evils of six-packs of apples); the relative cost (in money and CO2) of plastic vs glass vs iron vs aluminium vs styrofoam is getting a lot of mileage in radio and TV debates.
Maybe you’re right. I do know that a surprising number of straws end up in the ocean compared to plastic or styrofoam cups, lids, takeout containers, and bags, because I’ve done several cleanup dives and there’s always a huge pile of straws at the end, more than any other item. How they get there exactly, I can only speculate. Maybe they breed.
Has anyone here gotten involved in ecobrick-making at all? I just started collecting (some of) my plastic waste, but haven’t actually gotten as far as bricking it yet.
I know of 2 methods used by most water treatment plants to extract ‘solids’ from the waste water treatment stream:
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Screens. But I wouldn’t be surprised that the holes in the screen are large enough to allow straws through.
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Settling ponds. These allow ‘solids’ to settle to the bottom of the pond and accumulate there, while the water is drawn off the top of the pond. But plastic straws float, so won’t settle out.
I could see where plastic straws could leak through in the treatment process.
Thanks for this post and link. I find all of the attention paid to drinking straws to be silly. This sort of out-of-proportion obsession and misconception is sadly typical of many subjects.
I go to one place that has started using some sort of alternative straw, and it is simply unacceptable at its job. It becomes limp in liquid, and has a terrible lip-feel. I suspect more and more restaurants will become “enlightened” and switch to straws that don’t work as straws.
Just saw this mentioned on the local news.