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Comment by aetherson | Hacker News Reader

We should just use fucking normal plastic straws. This is environmental priority number 1,000,000, it just appeals to people instead of vastly more impactful interventions because roughly 50% of the environmental movement is looking for minor inconveniences that they can personally endure so they get a feeling of atonement.

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Or just choose not to use straws. I haven't needed to drink through a straw since I was 3 and couldn't hold a cup straight up-and-down. Who are these grown-ass adults who need to suck their drink through a straw like an uncoordinated child?

I can see if you are elderly or disabled or require extra assistance, then a straw would be essential, but for 99% of able-bodied adults? Why do restaurants even bother?

You need a straw if you're wearing lipstick.

Perhaps I need to tell my wife, she uses lipstick and no straws. What would be your source for this?

Do you mean people want a straw if they want to wear lipstick and want to not ruin its application?

This is the third thing someone is demanding people give up just so we could have a token, ineffective, anti-straw policy.

1) lipstick (and the effort put into applying it)

2) health reasons (not trusting the cup's sanitary credentials)

3) children (no idea why, but I have kids, and let me tell you: they want straws. Plus prevents spills if you tell them to leave the glass on the table)

How about we give up paper straws instead?

Yeah that's a more accurate way of phrasing it. Sentiment's the same though imo.

Schematics - you mean people _want_ water if they _want_ to live and _want_ to do it in a healthy manor?

There's quite a difference with your example than the exchange you were replying to.

(For what it's worth, I have no problem with people wanting to accessorize their bodies with lipstick. I don't see beauty in those things, but I have no problem with others seeing beauty that way. Ultimately it is a choice though, as people can also decide to be beautiful through their grace, words, actions, etc; not what some company tells them they need.)

Huge difference, one might say life and death. Neither do I but want vs need is almost entirely subjective.

>Ultimately it is a choice though

That's my point, context independent

> people _want_ water if they _want_ to live

> want vs need is almost entirely subjective

People need water if they want to live. Somehow you managed to picked the one need which is literally the single biggest need for life as we know it to exist, making it quite the opposite of "entirely subjective".

A statement like "I think pretty paint on lips is just as important as water because everything is subjective" is not making the point you think it is.

Its almost like I picked an extreme example intentionally and then made a joke about it to illustrate it was intentional. I wrote my point you missed it.

Which did I say? "almost entirely subjective" or "entirely subjective"? Where did I write the quote "I think pretty paint on lips is just as important as water because everything is subjective"? I remember writing "context independent" tho as to indicate it's not about lipstick its about semantics of defining a need

Maybe I'm sheltered but I'm baffled by all of these replies. Is this a US thing?

At least in Europe and East-Asia, it's unheard of for any nice restaurant to have straws except for kids. And it's not like women there don't wear lipstick. The image of going for a candlelight dinner and drinking from a straw is something straight out of a comedy sketch to me. I guess if it's a certain kind of cocktail, but that's the only exception. And even then the majority of cocktails won't have straws.

I truly have not been this confused by any HN thread and I've been reading this place almost daily for years.

Outside of specific cocktails, straws are not a fine dining thing in the US either. There's a reason why people are talking about things like Coke and burgers in the context of straws in drinks.

Right. Another commenter mentioned "a nice sit down restaurant", and some of the other replies imply they're just not used to not drinking without a straw at all, hence my confusion.

Now fine dining is on the extreme end, but a nice sit down restaurant to me implies something at least halfway inbetween a McDonalds and fine-dining, and at that halfway point I'd never expect straws.

I'm always amazed by the straw usage when visiting other countries.

Do straw bans have an exemption for children?

Some of them sort of do, by requiring that plastic straws are only provided on request rather than by default. Here's NYC's version:

https://portal.311.nyc.gov/article/?kanumber=KA-03462

I'll give a few reasons

- You can place the cup on a table and continue to drink it without taking your hands off your burger, or getting salty fingers on your cup

- Tipping a drink up makes you take your eyes off what's in front of you, so it's more awkward to do while walking

- Tipping a drink up makes you take your eyes off what's in front of you, so it's more dangerous while driving. Plus it can bash the bottom of the cup into your roof or sun visor if it's down.

- My McDonald's Coke Zero tastes better through a plastic straw. I don't know the science behind it but it enters your mouth differently and I like it more than sipping from a cup or a can

You're sipping slightly ice-diluted Coke with a fresher, higher CO2 mix and specific and fresher syrup storage from the bottom of the McDonald's Coke with a straw. it's more watered down as the ice melts if you sipped from the top.

Drinking it out of the can is drinking Coke as Coke intended; however, my theory is that pouring canned over ice may dilute it, but it cools it and the CO2 evaporation rate down lower than the mixed McDonald's coke, making the McD's coke tastes bubblier and fresher. Also, McD's water filtration system versus the frozen gravy cubes you're using.

Because there is more than one cup design and I do not want to make it look like I am drinking out of a sippy cup when I am at a nice sit down restaurant.

Straws also are more sanitary because I don't want to put my lip on the edge of a cup that could be contaminated.

Drinking from a straw at a nice sitdown restaurant doesn't look any more or less mature (since that seems to be what you're getting at?) than drinking out of the modern cup meant to be used without a straw.

Cup contamination? Do you also refuse to use forks and spoons as they could be contaminated?

Forks and spoons are cleaned by a dishwasher and covered by food safety standards. Like my County has an extensive inspection program. They are also wrapped in napkins.

Drinking out of a straw (usually a black one) looks more mature than slapping a plastic top on it like at Blaze Pizza or Starbucks.

Cups are not cleaned?

I guess whether it looks more mature is truly a cultural thing. In most of the world, straws are strongly associated with children. But maybe in your society, they're not. You may argue that the plastic top cups look like "sippy cups" that make you think of children, but they're fundamentally different items, unlike straws.

Cups are handled by bare hands of the waiter or server. They don't touch the inside of the cup before filling.

Note I am in the US hence the restaurants mentioned.

Sorry to tell you but your silverware is also touched by someone's bare hands between the time it comes out of the dishwasher and the time that you start to eat with it. It does have to get wrapped in a napkin or placed on your table somehow.

I'll refer you to this: https://www.reddit.com/r/healthinspector/comments/1d91etz/ro...

I agree. Why should you be able to buy drinks in disposable containers at all? Just have your drink at home like a normal person. In fact, all food and beverage establishments should just be banned. Eat at home and make yourself a lunch box.

People have preferences. Some people like eating out, some people like using straws. Why are we judging people over something like this?

Also, if you drink a fizzy or bubbly drink with glasses then it fizzes onto your glasses when you drink without a straw.

Also also, drinking something other than water via a straw is better for your teeth.

I prefer to skip straws for most drinks except for bubble tea. Sucking up all those tapioca balls along with the tea is the whole point, otherwise it wouldn't be bubble tea.

Yes, also no one considered the negative externalities in terms of public sentiment. Drinking through a floppy paper straw is unpleasant and it leads to snarky comments and negative sentiment about environmentalism.

The effect is not measurable and it was a knee-jerk reaction to a viral video rather than data driven. It acts as evidence that environmentalism has become mostly political rather than scientific.

>Drinking through a floppy paper straw is unpleasant but leads to positive sentiments around environmentalism for environmentalists

Which is all you really need to know about why they did it.

The vast majority of people dispose of their trash correctly, and if you're worried about your own plastic waste ending up dumped into the Pacific via third-world recycling then doing it on-continent would result in cleaning up more than just straws.

Interesting, yeah thinking more about this it probably applies to recycling also. Separating your plastics is mostly useless as they just get shipped to third world countries where they are mostly dumped or burned.

But that act of sorting and shaming others for not doing it definitely makes a certain subset of people feel better about themselves.

Every time I end up with a soggy paper straw sticking out the top of a disposable plastic cup I contemplate the credibility of modern environmentalism politics.

I think it's the other way around. Simple, cheap and visible 'solutions' make companies look green without having to actually do anything. That it inconveniences people is just a great benefit, so they can resist future change by saying: we would like to do more, but people don't want that.

Why don't companies come out and tell the truth rather than pretend to be doing something though? Like, straws in some countries end up disproportionately in streams, etc., but not in country X, moreover, plastic straw alternatives are worse due to a, b and c.

Because they live out of lying to their customers? Doing the barely minimum and not even that, trying to get around any regulation which may benefit the customers, welcome to today's economy. I don't want to call it capitalism or socialism or whatever - because under any name, it's just a shit status we have - and we surprisingly seem willing to put up with.

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