Paper Straws

By Hannah Diem, Grade 8

During the past few years more and more has been coming out about the effects of plastic on our world. We are warned about the path we are bound to take if we don't take a look at the amount of plastic and fossil fuels we use in a day. We have all seen the way they impact wildlife through a video shown in school or in a commercial about working to recycle these plastics. The turtle who is nearly dead due to pollution or a fish who mistook a plastic water bottle as food and didn't survive because of it. Either way everyone has seen the horrible things that can happen because plastics are brought into the ocean.

Communities have tried to alter our dreadful climatic mistakes by getting rid of plastic straws in restaurants. As a result, many restaurants are giving out paper straws as an alternative. Although this has the right intentions, it may not be what we should be focusing on in times where other things are much worse. There are about 8 million tons of plastic made and spread around the world every year. That is so many products including water bottles, take out containers, solo cups, stickers, balloons, plastic bags, plastic straws and more. But, only 0.025% of that is plastic straws. Meaning there are many other plastic products that should be dealt with before we get into plastic straws. We are not accomplishing enough with changing the plastic straws to paper, instead we should begin to shift our focus to the other products which make up the 99.975% of plastic that ends up throughout the world.

Paper straws are also not the most ideal solution. When was the last time you used a paper straw for an extended amount of time and thought, "Wow, this is where it's at." No, you just don't think that. You think "Wow, this sucks I'm drinking out of soggy cardboard." This alternative simply does not work as well as the original. Paper straws can begin the disintegration process 10 minutes into drinking from them. But, you may just suck it up and keep drinking cause what you are doing will help the environment. That one straw will save the life of a sea creature who likes to mistake straws for dinner. Well, is what you're doing really helping the environment? In an Atlantic article written by Annie Lowrey she proclaims, "Plastic straws might be everything terrible about American consumerism, individually wrapped. But paper straws put the law to the belief that we can consume our way out of the problems created by consumerism." We are told that what we are doing is the right thing, but is it? Is it worth it when there are so many other things that we need to improve first? Or are we trying to correct something with the same mistake?

Plastic straws are a very important issue and the distribution of plastic waste in the ocean is despicable. But a paper straw is not without its effects. In an Atlantic article written by Annie Lowrey it states, "Making a paper straw requires growing a tree, cutting it down, and pulping and pressing it into a tube. Manufacturers then use fossil fuels to ship the straws to stores and cafés." We are still using fossil fuels, machinery and other things to get that paper straw to you. Showing that the straw is still omitting harmful things into the environment even if it is a bit less harmful than plastic.

Let's take a look at the amount of waste a restaurant uses. According to moveforhunger.org, " A half a pound of food is wasted per meal in restaurants… (and) 85% of the food that isn't used in a typical American restaurant is thrown out." This shows one of the bigger problems that restaurants need to focus on before paper straws. There is so much food waste that a restaurant produces. If you were to go out to dinner with 3 friends, the preparation of your food would take about 2 pounds of food waste and you would use 4 plastic straws. So what is more impactful, 2 pounds of food that could equal 2 meals for a food insecure person, or 4 plastic straws that could be recycled? I don't know about you but two meals is much more important than the straws. There are 42 million food insecure people in America and those two meals could make a huge difference for them. This only shows how restaurants have the bigger issue and impact with the amount of food waste they produce. But, instead of changing their food consumption, they are hiding it with you thinking you are doing something great by sucking out of a mushy cardboard tube.

The way I look at it, I wonder if we'll ever be able to "save the turtles" like so many people think we are heading towards. We are being told companies are doing something when these corporations are really doing nothing. So, at this rate we will accomplish very little of what we are hoping for, we are only doing about 0.025% of what we need to get done. In restaurants alone we can experience a loss of hope for the future of a possibly better Earth. When you are handed a paper straw you think the restaurant is trying for a lesser consumption of waste, but no. They are simply covering up their plentiful food waste everyone else would frown upon. And we could take the lens of the skeptic, saying that this could be happening in every work field and we simply don't know it. So let's imagine that's true, what does that mean for the future of our entire planet? Is it worth it to change and spend money on a little thing when there is so much to be done? Are those minutes of extreme drinking discomfort worth it? I don't think so. I think that instead of focusing on something so miniscule as paper straws we should look at the bigger picture of things we can do. Go get a metal water bottle, ban plastic bags in stores, advertise using less pointless waste. These are things we can do, that cause no discomfort, that could lead to bigger things in the future.