The Final Straw

Concerned about the straw? Don’t forget about the cup.

words by CLAIRE ROONEY • design by PATRICK HARPER

traws suck. While using a straw might make drinking an iced coffee more enjoyable, the reality is: most people don’t need them. We can’t completely get rid of them because they are necessary for the elderly and disabled, but they are a luxury for the rest of us.

People seem to be realizing this around the world, with companies like Starbucks and Disney completely banning straws. What Mickey Mouse and the gang don’t realize is that the problem is a lot bigger than straws. Straws make up about four percent of plastic waste. That’s not a lot compared to the 91 percent of plastic waste that isn’t recycled each year. This waste goes from coffee shop trash cans to the Ohio River to the ocean. Justin Mog, a sustainability coordinator at University of Louisville, had a few thoughts about the straw ban.

“It frustrates me when people get all in a tizzy about something like straws because the crisis is so much bigger than that,” he said, throwing his hands in the air.

In Louisville and around the world, that crisis is tons of wasteful plastic that go into the ocean. According to the World Economic Forum, the equivalent of a garbage truck full of plastic enters our oceans every minute, and it’s expected double by 2030. “I’m excited that Kroger has committed to getting rid of their disposable plastic bags, but they’re not going to do it until 2025 for crying out loud,” Mog said.

The next time Urban Outfitters has a sale on sweaters, you might want to think twice about spending your cash on one. Plastic is even in our clothing. When you wash fleece, it throws off little bits of plastic that go down the drain and eventually into our ocean.

Plastic is everywhere. It’s in our clothes, around our coffee, and in our waterways. We’re using the straw ban to feel like we’re helping, but it’s merely scratching the surface of the plastic waste problem.

“Maybe straws will help us get there. I just hope we don’t get overly focused on one thing as if that’s going to be the ‘silver bullet’ to solve all our problems,” Mog said.

Banning straws isn’t going to save the world. Straws aren’t even the biggest perpetrators of ocean plastic waste. If you opened Facebook over the summer, the video of a straw stuck in a turtle’s nose was plastered all over the trending page, but we didn’t feature marine who mistake plastic bags for jellyfish and try to eat them.

Limiting single-use plastic items such as straws and grocery bags is a baby step in this marathon of living sustainably.

If we took considerable steps towards sustainability, how different would our world look? Using straws isn’t the end of the world, but plastic waste in its entirety very well could be. While starting small can make a difference, it takes change on a global scale to really make a dent Taking small strides like replacing single-use items with reusable ones, reducing plastic waste, and biking instead of driving are just a few things we can do to potentially make our earth a little better for generations to come. •

WHAT ARE BUSINESSES DOING?

Heine Brothers’ coffee is known for their fair trade and sustainability initiatives, but what are they doing about the world’s plastic problem? The local coffee shop has switched to biodegradable straws and constantly encourage customers to recycle their cups. Starbucks encourages their customers to buy reusable cups to refill in-store. They’re also in the process of phasing out plastic straws, replacing them with strawless lids, similar to the paper lids for hot drinks.