Straw Bans Are Just A Start
By Nicole Dergosits, Stony Brook University Graduate Student
I have lived in Upstate New York my whole life and I didn’t have a lot of opportunities to travel when I was growing up. When I was 20 years old, I took it upon myself and traveled internationally for the first time. I decided to go to Indonesia and one day, I went to an outdoor restaurant on the beach for lunch. For a drink, I ordered a dragon fruit smoothie, and my glass came with a straw in it that said in bold letters; ‘#IAMNOTPLASTIC’. The big hashtag on my straw was hard to miss and it made me think about plastic pollution while waiting for my food to come.
Photo: Nicole Dergosits
While I was waiting, a memory from elementary school instantly came to mind. My teacher told the class that the straws we use might end up stuck in a dolphin or whale’s blowhole. After my teacher said that, I started feeling guilty about using straws and even tried to convince my family to stop using them. My efforts were not successful. It was hard to stop using plastic straws since a lot of restaurants would immediately put straws in all the drinks before bringing them to the table without asking if we wanted a straw or not. In fact, the National Park Service claims that Americans alone use 500 million straws. A study published in 2017 also estimates that 8.3 billion plastic straws pollute beaches all over the world. Surprisingly, things have changed a bit since I was in elementary school. Seattle became the biggest U.S. city to ban plastic straws in 2018. Starbucks made a plan to get rid of plastic straws by 2020 and McDonald's announced plans to ban plastic straws at the UK and Ireland locations.
A few years after I went to Indonesia, I traveled to Hawaii with a friend to visit his grandmother. One morning, we stopped at a coffee shop before going on a strenuous hike. After I got my iced coffee, I noticed a straw dispenser on the counter that said; ‘compostable straws because we love turtle(s)’. I couldn’t help but smile when I saw the message and I appreciated whoever decided to only provide compostable straws in the coffee shop and took the time to put the message on the straw dispenser.
Photo: Nicole Dergosits
I also saw a friend in Europe post a picture on Instagram of his drinks at a bar that only uses straws made of uncooked pasta. I thought all these straw alternatives I saw were cool and wondered why we don’t see plastic straw alternatives regularly in American restaurants, coffee shops, or bars. If all businesses decided to ban plastic straws, it would make a positive difference but that alone wouldn’t be nearly enough to alleviate the global plastic pollution issue.
As I got older, I learned that straws are just a fraction of the problem. Of the 8 million tons of plastic that flow into the ocean every year, straws only comprise 0.025 percent, according to National Geographic. It is not good enough if restaurants stop using plastic straws. What about all the plastic utensils, plastic cups, and plastic bags? We have all heard about the horrors of plastic pollution but when we don’t directly see the consequences of our actions, it’s hard for some of us to care about how it affects the ocean. Plastic debris injures and kills fish, seabirds, and marine mammals from ingestion, starvation, suffocation, infection, drowning, and entanglement. I’m sure if people witnessed the entire journey of their plastic waste, they would be more motivated to cut back on plastic. Unfortunately, if it's out of sight, it tends to be out of mind. It is too easy for us to go through hundreds of plastic straws, bottles, and bags without thinking twice about it. We know that everything we use and throw away goes somewhere but we don’t think about where. It is just easier not to dwell on it.
According to Ocean Unite, global plastics consumption is predicted to reach over 440 million tons a year by 2025. That’s only a few years from now! We need to force ourselves to think about the ugly truth of the plastic we use. Alternatives to plastic straws like the ones I saw during my travels are becoming more popular and it is a step in the right direction. However, single-use plastic food containers, beverage bottles, and plastic bottle caps are some of the most common items found in ocean and coastal surveys done by Ocean Conservancy. The Surfrider Foundation is taking action by changing how restaurants operate with their Ocean Friendly Restaurants program. They encourage restaurants to stop selling beverages in plastic bottles and to give customers discounts for bringing reusable cups, containers, and bags. Surfrider also makes sure that the restaurants they work with benefit from the changes they make by promoting the restaurants that were willing to change and they additionally get tax-deductible contributions. What if every restaurant in America or the whole world did this kind of program? I have no doubt all the marine animals would thank us for doing that if they could talk.