Want To Help The Planet? #StopSucking. Yes, Really : )
If you’ve read my mission statement already, then you’re already familiar with this suggestion. There is a viral anti-plastic straw campaign going around right now you may have heard of: #StopSucking. On that campaign’s website, they feature this sobering statistic:
“By the year 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean.”
Or perhaps you saw this photo I posted to my Instagram account:
But here’s something I didn’t have space to write about in my mission statement. This terrifying fact recently reported by CBS News: By 2048 (that’s easily within most of our lifetimes if we’re lucky and definitely within our children’s lifetimes), there will be no more salt-water fish in the ocean. Like, at all. No more fish! No more tuna sandwiches for lunch. No more yellowtail sashimi. No more wild sea bass…or wild salt-water anything. That is due to a toxic cocktail of reasons such as climate change, pollution, overfishing, and habitat loss.
The chicken of the sea will soon be the dodo bird of the sea.
The average person may not have much influence over how international fisheries are currently operating, or where coral reefs are being destroyed for shipping routes. And it may take years if not decades to reverse the effects of climate change.
And actually, if you read this recently published report in The Guardian that found microscopic pieces of plastic (which had been pulverized by ocean currents and mixed with the salt water) in commercial sea salt products all over the globe, it may take even longer than that.
But one very easy thing we can do right this very minute to help diminish the amount of plastic waste ending up in our oceans is by reducing our use of straws.
I mean, would you rather have a straw to drink your water at a restaurant or have fish in the sea? Would you rather use fewer plastic products, or unknowingly ingest them every time you reach for a salt shaker?
In fact, some restaurants and cities across the country have taken the lead and banned plastic straws altogether. From Seattle, to Malibu, to Miami Beach, Florida, plastic straw bans are taking shape. But it’s not just the coastal cities that have an affect here. Trash doesn’t need to come from an ocean town to end up in the ocean. Even McDonalds is getting into the act by banning plastic straws at 1300 of their locations throughout the UK!
Night Blossom drink at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Photo courtesy of Kayla Loveday Peloquin.
“But what will I drink my margarita with?”
This is a real question I saw posted in a facebook discussion about a local straw ban proposal. My cheeky side wanted to reply and say, well, with your lips like people used to do back in the 1950s before plastic straws were invented. In fact, according to this fascinating Bon Appétit feature on the history of straws, though plastic straws weren’t invented until the early 1960s, paper straws first appeared back in the 1880s. So we as a civilization were drinking out of paper straws far longer than plastic!
At Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park in Walt Disney World, Florida, every restaurant on property uses paper straws. I once read that this Animal Kingdom ban is because birds tend to pull straws out of the trash to build their nests with. And once they realize it’s not a twig or good nesting material, they just drop it. So plastic straws were ending up in the wild animal habitats that make up the majority of the park (it encompasses 580 acres total). That, in turn, was endangering the animals.
Paper straws at the Tusker House restaurant. No guilt here taking two since they’re biodegradable!
And you know what? It was no trouble at all to sip my Night Blossom (pictured above) beneath the floating mountains of Pandora through a paper straw. Isn’t that drink gorgeous by the way? (If you’d like to read more about the world of Pandora, check out Kayla’s full post in her blog Mommy Of A Princess.)
You can now buy reusable straws of all sizes, colors, and even materials to use at home or bring with you! I love my metal smoothie size straws which I bring to my favorite boba place in lieu of using their plastic straws.
The following are Amazon Affiliate links, which cost you nothing to use but could earn me a small commission. Read more about this in my Disclaimers Page.
Here are some great options for reusable straws made out of dishwasher-safe metal, bamboo, and silicon!
Diminishing your use of plastic straws is a very easy way you can make a small change without much effort. So, next time your restaurant server starts to pull a plastic straw out of their apron, just smile and say “no thanks.” #StopSucking. It’s really as simple as that!
