Oh, no…another inconvenient truth coming your way!  Yeah, we’ve got a bit of a problem and if you’ll hear me out, I think you’ll be just as interested in helping solve it as I am…fingers crossed!  

If you read my blog or follow me on social media, you’ll see I’m not a fan of the plastic straw.  In fact, I’ve written about my glass straw and I’ve also suggested stainless steel straws for those with children or for those who don’t like the idea of carrying glass.  So, yeah, I’ve got a hate-on for plastic straws.  I find their one-time use excessive, wasteful and irresponsible.  Not sure that it’s irresponsible?  Just think…any straw (or plastic for that matter) that you’ve ever used is still on this planet and probably will be for another 700 years or so.  Sad, but true. Here’s the facts that I got from Choose To Be Straw Free:

WHAT THEY’RE MADE OF:  Plastic straws are made from Polypropylene, a bi-product of petroleum…same thing that fuels your car.  Not to mention plasticizers, colorants, antioxidants, stabilizers, and fillers.  Yeah, that’s your straw.  I’m pretty certain that I don’t want my drink running through that.

FOR THAT 15-20 MINUTES OF STRAW USE?  Petroleum plastics are designed to last FOREVER.  What a horrible thought, huh?  Especially for for one drink!

THEY END UP IN THE OCEANS WE SWIM IN:  Straws are one of the Top 10 marine debris items.  How are we letting this happen?

THE FISH YOU EAT ARE EATING YOUR STRAWS:  44% of all seabird species and 22% of all cetaceans ingest plastic.  Yeah, it’s killing the poor little guys as they think it’s food, and if you’re a fish eater, well…you are what you eat.

YOU’RE NOT THE ONLY ONE USING STRAWS:  Each day we use 500,000,000 straws…that’s enough to fill 46,400 large school buses a year!  Unacceptable.

PLASTIC IS 90% OF ALL TRASH FLOATING IN THE OCEAN: Have you ever been swimming in the ocean and came upon a plastic bottle or garbage?  Your first thought was probably, “Gross.”  It is, but we can do something about this.

So, what the heck can we do about this?

What I’m thinking is perhaps we should be asking our local restaurants to start using paper straws.  I was just at two different restaurants this year and was THRILLED when my drink came with a paper straw.  Again, another suggestion is for us to bring our own straw, but very often, bartenders and restaurants are so used to sticking a straw in your drink, they do it without thinking, even if you’ve requested a drink without a straw.