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... COMES AROUND
UBC works to combat straw ban ablism that sidelines those who need them most Words by Charlotte Alden Illustration by Yiyang Wang
“I
f straws weren’t around, I can’t drink,” said Deepi Leihl, 38. “People can give it to me, but it can be messy, and you want to avoid that. With straws, it’s another form of accessibility.” Leihl, the access collective coordinator at CiTR, has metatropic dwarfism. This is a severe skeletal dysplasia that results in small stature and short arms and legs, according to the Genetic and Rare Diseases Information Centre. As a result, Leihl uses a wheelchair to get around and straws to drink liquids as she is physically unable to take
caps off cups. If Leihl doesn’t have a straw, she has support staff who can help her drink from cups, but she said that she can only completely control how much and how fast she drinks liquids with a straw. “I’m not forcing myself to drink so much when I’m using a straw. It’s just what I can handle. I have control. When somebody else is doing it, then they have the control,” Leihl said. But this form of assistive device is at risk for people like Leihl as UBC transitions away from single-use plastics, thus phasing out plastic
straws. At UBC, the 2019 adoption of the Zero Waste Food Ware Strategy has been a catalyst for many environmentally minded changes. In August 2018, UBC Food Services stopped offering plastic straws in favour of paper alternatives. In January 2019, businesses on campus began to charge an additional fee of at least 25 cents for single-use coffee cups, with more changes to follow. The AMS implementation of the plan focuses on using up current supplies of cutlery and then subsequently transitioning to bamboo
