No Straw, Please

For over a year now I’ve been straw free, and I’ll tell you what, I don’t even miss the little guys.

Straws have always been ingrained in part of our drinking experience. A tiny bit of plastic that no one really thinks about, just there to make the journey from glass to stomach more seamless.

However, these tiny little plastic folks are no more than an unneeded luxury that are costing our planet.

Disposable straws are made from plastic, and unlike some plastics which can be recycled, straws cannot and never fully breakdown. Even biodegradable straws cannot decompose once in oceans or waterways.

Studies have shown that 500 million straws are used and discarded daily in the United States, which is enough to wrap around the Earth’s circumference 2.5 times – yikes! Now imagine that worldwide.

To see just how harmful straws can be to our ocean life, below is a video of a team of scientists removing a plastic straw from the nostril of a sea turtle.

Warning – contains distressing footage.

The Good News

The ‘No Straw’ movement is making waves across the planet with organisations such as Plastic Pollution Coalition leading The Last Plastic Straw Movement, and The Last Straw campaign, which aims to end the use of plastic straws in venues around Australia.

And it’s working. Bars, cafes and restaurants have begun to eliminate straws across Australia. Dr Morse, an eatery and bar in Melbourne, starting charging 50c per straw to make consumers think about whether they really needed them, before eradicating them all together late last year.

An increasing number of individuals are choosing to stop using straws and make the personal choice to better our environment and ocean life.

Next time you’re out on the town, order a drink with ‘no straw, please’.