Plastic straws may help you drink without spilling, but the long-term costs are to high. Americans use 500 million drinking straws each day. When they are thrown away, they pollute our landfills and oceans. Marine animals sometimes mistake the plastic for food. There’s a viral video on YouTube that shows a turtle with a straw stuck up it’s nose! It’s okay for people to be attached to using straws, but there are good alternatives to plastic ones. People can buy paper or steel straws to carry with them. And many cities across the U.S. have restricted the use of plastic straws unless a person requests one. Passing more laws to ban plastic straws will not solve problem, but it is a good first step.
Dear Rosa,
I’m interested in your post, “Will a plastic straw ban actually be effective when it comes to saving our oceans and environment?” because it mentions the negative effects of plastic staws to the environment. As well as what we’re doing as a whole to fix these pollution issues.
Something you wrote that stands out to me is: ” It’s okay for people to be attached to using straws, but there are good alternatives to plastic ones. People can buy paper or steel straws to carry with them.” I find that the alternative of using paper straws isn’t really comparable since paper is made from trees, then the reduction of trees caused by paper straws makes air worse. Technically, it’s not making the environment any better. I believe metal straws would help instead by a large margin. Ultimately, I think the fact that alternatives are being made is great.
Thanks for your writing. I hope to see what interesting topics you bring up next because this cleared a lot up for me. I enjoy gaining an understanding of topics that I wasn’t as informed of.
Dear Rosa, I really like how you mentioned the high cost of straws but the long term effect they put on the earth. Since they are used so much each day this means that of course there is a mass production of straws. Pollution on earth increases and it ends up hurting marine life. The plastic invades their home and the animals don’t know any better and end up eating the plastic or getting hurt by the plastic. “Save the turtles” is just one of the slogans that is used to support this cause and stop using plastic straws. So implementing little rules in restaurants that limit the amount of straws that go out, making it really good first step. It also is getting more popular to use metal reusable straws, and using paper straws in restaurants as an alternative. Learning more about the dangers of straws is very interesting, thank you for sharing! I hope to hear more information about this topic soon.
-Litzy
Dear Rosa,
I am interested in the argument you present regarding the effectiveness of a ban on plastic straws because I also believe the same, that not using plastic straws is not an end but a beginning. The last point that you make, “Passing more laws to ban plastic straws will not solve [the] problem, but it is a good first step” is interesting because a lot of people think that not using plastic straws is a good measure, and the only measure they should take. All over social is the slogan “save the turtles” which has caused many teenagers to use plastic straws. However this Stanford article (https://earth.stanford.edu/news/do-plastic-straws-really-make-difference#gs.jfeyey) states that plastic straws are a mere 1 percent of the problem when it comes to ocean pollution. Teenagers today think they are doing the world a favor by using say paper or metal straws, when in reality, the problem requires much more effort. Your argument will cause other teenagers on this cite to question the steps they take towards preventing ocean pollution. Thank you for writing, and I hope you dive further into the topic for another one of your posts because there is so much to uncover about the effectiveness of a ban on plastic straws.
Dear Rosa, I agree that we have to be willing to give up certain things and use fewer single-use plastics to save our planet! Though for straws, I have seen opposition from the disabled community. Some disabled people with limited motor skills and such can’t drink without a straw, and plastic seems to be the most convenient type; paper straws may dissolve in hot liquids, and metal and silicon straws aren’t very flexible or easy to position. I saw a few videos about it, and it was something I really hadn’t thought about before, so it was pretty interesting to learn about.