I’m done with plastic straws. It’s not because of this picture.
It’s Earth Week, and Mother’s Day is May 12th (enjoy your candle, Mother Earth), so it feels appropriate to talk about this pict…errr straws.
A few things about plastic straws:
It’s estimated 8.3 billion plastic straws pollute the world’s beaches and 500 million straws are used every day in the U.S.
What if we actually filled Yankee Stadium with plastic straws? Reduce waste while shortening the baseball season = win-win. Maybe part of the Green New Deal AOS?
A nine-year-old who started a “Be Straw Free” campaign named Milo called straw manufacturers and asked them how many plastic straws they think Americans use. That’s where we got the 500 million straws per day estimate cited by everyone. This might not be the most precise scientific method.
Certain Kathleans (it’s spelled Cathleen barista idiots!) who don’t want to change how their lattes are mainlined cite that of the eight million tons of plastic that flow into the ocean every year, straws comprise just 0.025 percent of that (have you not seen the turtle with a straw stuck in it’s nose video Cathy, c’mon!).
Other (potentially more liberal) people, say plastic straws are a “gateway plastic,” (items that make it easy for people to get comfortable with single-use disposable plastics like cutlery and cups).
It’s been written plastic straws are a symbolic step in the right direction of reducing waste.
Others remind us that plastic straws are essential to those suffering from a myriad of conditions and disabilities.
Alaska Airlines, Starbucks and Seattle have banned plastic straws or have announced plans to. (Minneapolis has not – much to my detriment in this pic).
By the year 2050, there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish.
That’s a lot to unpack, and I’m at my sipping point with making straws political, but one thing I know for sure is this picture definitely isn’t the reason I’m cancelling plastic straws.
So #exstraw
HOW THE F DID IT GET THERE, though? I asked my March Madnezz 2K19 Facebook group message about it.
Harrowing, paranoid crickets greeted me. This was for me to find out on my own.
How did I not notice the straw? Perhaps, after my 54th double vodka water of the weekend, I was pondering that plastic straws wouldn’t even be an issue if Ancient Sumerians, one of the first societies known to brew beer, didn’t submerge long, thin tubes made from precious metals into large jars to reach the liquid gold sitting below fermentation byproducts (thank you National Geographic).
Maybe I was trying to find empathy in my heart for the caffeinated Cathleens. In their defense, people have hated flimsy straws forever.
In 1880, a man named Marvin Stone was drinking a mint julep on a hot summer day when his piece of rye grass, then used as a straw, began to disintegrate. Stone decided he could make something better and become the first to apply for a straw patent (Straw history and alcohol seem very intertwined, so my straw in hair picture interestingly fits from a historical perspective).
Alright, enough.
I’m giving up plastic straws because of this picture. That’s ok. Everyone has their moment where they giggle to themselves and say, “When x happened it was the…last straw.”
This is mine.
Facts don’t change people’s minds (see The New Yorker).
Photos seem to be powerful, however (see Instagram), and this one is terrifying.
It takes up to 200 years for a plastic straw to decompose, but it’s going to take longer for me to forget this image.
Thank you to whoever put it in my hair.
It was my, well, you know.
* They say a photo is worth a 1,000 words. This article is 642. I thank you for making it through. I hope you enjoyed the straw history.