How the plastic straw disabled started? Plastic remains trouble most creatures must face since it cannot easily decompose in the soil.
Many people have launched the awareness regarding reducing, reuse, and recycling to the plastic, however, the recycling process might not meet our intention since the numbers of plastic waste go beyond the human ability to do the recycling process.
This situation leads to several campaigns such as no plastic bag and plastic straw disabled, but how does a tiny plastic straw lead to one of the world’s biggest campaigns?
History of Plastic Straw’s Banned
This big campaign starts with a small 9 years old child, Milo Cress, who asked the restaurant to offer first instead of presenting a drink with the straw directly. He then also realized that American produces 500 million straws per year, a giant number that can fulfill more than four buses. His demand led to his campaign “Be Straw Free” in 2011.
The straw itself has two hundred lifespans, which is quite dangerous to the environment. Due to that situation, the straws hurt many creatures in the sea and lead them to death. Residual burning from plastic is also not good for our respiratory tract.
This campaign gets support from many parties. Many giant-restaurant and cafe chains, such as McDonald’s and Starbucks, decided no longer use the plastic straw and change them either with the paper straw or sell the metal straw to make people get used to bringing their straw.
The Controversy of Plastic Straw Banned
The pro-environment campaign does not make everybody happy. Some of them doubt the data brought by Cress. The controversy swirls since, as NBC stated, 46% of plastic waste comes from the fishing equipment. This fact makes the campaign against plastic straw considered as an over-exaggeration.
Moreover, whilst many restaurant chains offer the plastic straw banned, they still keep using other kinds of plastic such as glass lid, plastic glass, and also the plastic bag. This fact leads to the conclusion that many companies only use this campaign as a public relations strategy to increase sales.
The making of metal straw also contributes more pollution compared to the plastic straw. The energy needed to make only a piece of metal straw is equivalent to those that you need to create more than 50 plastic straws.
Countries That Ban Plastic Straw
Although many controversies of the plastic straw disabled all over the world, several countries support this idea and make a regulation regarding the plastic straw ban.
In Europe, there are the United Kingdom and France. France itself is the first country to ban the plastic straw. In Africa, there are Rwanda, Morocco, Zimbabwe, and Kenya. In Asia, Taiwan and South Korea also ban plastic straw. Antigua and Barbuda in the Caribbean also consider the importance of plastic straw disabled, as well as Canada and the United States.
The plastic straw disables signs of the win for the environmentalist, but there will always be the controversy ahead if we do not pay attention to the other harmful plastic.