Plastic straw idiocy
- Thread starter NinjaKnight
- Start date
On behalf of all plastic straws everywhere, "SUCK IT"
34 million illegal aliens driving around in 30 year old cars however does have a bad effect on the environment in the U.S., but it's politically incorrect to talk about them.
I'm more conservative but I'm fully ok with getting rid of plastic straws. My question is what about the plastic lids?
Had this discussion the other day . Saw a paper straw stuck through a plastic lid
I look at it as every little bit helps. My wife and I turn down straws at restaurants and if we get a fountain drink at a gas station don't use a lid or a straw unless we have our stainless steel straws with us. We don't go around hounding people about their plastic use though, since that's totally counterproductive and we aren't perfect ourselves.
i do believe in climate change. i also believe in practical approaches. im ok with getting rid of the vast majority of straws, but a law to make them illegal is just stupid. my problem is the new starbucks lid uses more plastic than the previous straw and lid combo. so wtf are they actually accomplishing?
I’m pretty sure this whole thing started after a viral video happened showing sea turtles with plastic straws lodged in their nasal passages. The lids while still a problem, at least won’t have that happen. I guess it’s just one of those things where it’s a start.
Yeah but imo all plastic is a serious threat to All sea life . Definitely can’t do it all at once for sure
Single use plastics need to go away. Hell, most single use products should be done away with.
This. It's not just about straws, but all single-use plastics. We were in England a couple of months ago and I believe that they have a law taking effect that will ban all single-use plastics. There was a story on the news while we were there about the opening of the first paper straw factory in 100 years or something like that.
As for the new Starbucks lid - I don't know much about it, but is it possible that it's made with the bio-degradable additive?
There as a good story re: plastics the other day on CBS Sunday Morning: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/piling-up-drowning-in-a-sea-of-plastic/. In that piece they referenced a documentary that I'm interested in checking out: https://www.plasticchina.org/. Up until recently China was purchasing the majority of our "dirty" plastic (plastic that our recyclers couldn't use - plastic that was "contaminated" with paper and other non-plastic materials). That all changed when the documentary was released and China decided that it didn't want to be viewed as the world's garbage can. Now our recycling centers are bursting at the seams with material that used to be sold to China. There's only one place to put it now. I think that's a significant reason why we're seeing this push to ban single-use plastics.
ETA: I just read this on Starbucks' website re: their elimination of plastic straws in favor of a universal lid:
The lid that is replacing the straws is also made of plastic, but its polypropylene content can be widely recycled. “By nature, the straw isn’t recyclable and the lid is, so we feel this decision is more sustainable and more socially responsible,” said Chris Milne, director of packaging sourcing for Starbucks.
