Wonder if this will have an impact on plastic straw bans on land. It was always a feel-good hi-viz, low-impact measure given little evidence behind the measures.
Saving the planet - an enormous and incredibly complex task, will undoubtedly require quite a bit of individual action and behaviour change. To do without a straw or bringing your own cup can be a commitment to such behaviour change, to accept and act on whatever reasonable measure we find out to be important. Finding out that, say, producing a bamboo straw or cleaning the reusable mug takes more energy than producing plastic straws and cups should not be taken as a reason to mock well-intentioned actions (not saying that you did), but rather to iterate and figure out real solutions.
They certainly don’t include using government force to impose that on everybody else, while having no fucking clue what one is talking about.
That depends on what happens with your trash. If it stays inland in a landfill, then no. If it's sold for sorting and transported long distance on a barge, then that's possible.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/111835637/volunteers-in-tears...
"The Fox Glacier landfill operated from the 1960s until the early 2000s. It was eroded by the Fox River during the huge storm event on March 26 and 27."
And yet, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that there's less plastic in a straw than in a disposable coffee cup, let alone the doubled cups that they serve the coffee in in lieu of using those paper sleeves. Certainly after they've stuck one of those plastic sippy lids on top of the whole affair. If they're worried about their waste stream, that's the place to start.
Also, you can reuse the plastic bags.
I found one study that suggested, though, that the lowest environmental load came from the regular disposable bags as long as you reuse them until they wear out. The main reason I don't do that is that I've discovered that supermarket employees seem to really hate that, in a way they don't with the bags that are made for reuse.
I'm also inclined to guess that it's still bikeshedding. The shopping bag is really visible, but it's maybe a small amount of waste compared to all the unnecessary packaging for the products it's being used to carry home.
https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2019/say-hello-to-the-...
Starbucks also pays customers to take their drinks in reusable cups.
https://www.starbucks.com/responsibility/environment/cups-an...
I am not surprised to learn that people who have thought about the issue for more than 2 minutes have come up with a better solution than a low effort HN comment.
I think the EU when banning this had data, they sampled garbage they found on various beaches and decided that straws are both common and easy to replace.
So while the ban straws was a token gesture it does seem to have generated some creativity and movement on other fronts which at least gets peoples attention on the problem of single-use plastics.
Even if the only the thing the straw ban did was inspired a whataboutism movement to pretend to care about fishing nets, it would still be a net win in terms of motivating improvement.
> End of this year, Thailand will be free from three types of plastic – microbeads, cap seals and oxo-degradable plastics – and from four other types of single-use plastics by 2022, according to a road map that got the Cabinet’s initial nod on Tuesday.
> The four single-use plastics to be rid of by 2022 are: lightweight plastic bags less than 36 microns thick; styrofoam food containers for takeaways; plastic cups and plastic straws – with the exception of those who still need to use them such as the elderly, patients and children.
I hope Thailand sticks with these plans. Plastics use is huge over here and in my opinion these plans could make a big difference.
Isn't this all that politics is?
Plastic waste reduction needs to think bigger. This isn't about straws. It's about a wasteful throw away culture that has to adapt to a less wasteful way of life. And that will involve making sacrifices beyond paper straws.
Does an AMD threadripper need to come in a huge gaudy plastic display case? Does amazon need to send a thumb sized trinket in a 10x12 plastic bubble envelope? Why does my gadget come in a fancy box that needs to be placed in another box filled with foam packing peanuts or plastic bags full of air? All that wasteful packaging does is clog landfills and waterways. But people foolishly praise it as in the case of the horribly wasteful AMD packing. It's environmentally tone deaf.