People are finally becoming aware of the plastic straw problem plaguing our oceans, but what about the rest of our plastic waste?
I want to begin this article by telling a little story. I was at Laurier’s Wellness Centre last year after coming down with a cold during exam season, and while I was there waiting to see if I had strep throat, I overheard a very interesting conversation between a couple of nurses.
One of them had recently watched a video about the dangers of plastic straws and how they were affecting sea turtles and she had decided to stop using plastic straws at home and at restaurants. She purchased some really cool metal straws and stopped using plastic straws at restaurants. She shared some really interesting statistics about how many places have transitioned away from plastic straws since news came out about how many straws are thrown away by Canadians every day.
This was the incident that opened my eyes to the plastic straw problem — and once they were opened, they never closed again. Suddenly my dad was mentioning on a phone call that the cruise he had gone on no longer provided plastic straws; I was getting asked at restaurants whether or not I needed a plastic straw and while I was at a food court, they gave me a straw made out of paper. The entire world seemed to become aware of the evils of plastic straws all at once and it was amazing.
Once this school year started I began spending a lot of weekends at Guelph University. I noticed that they have signs everywhere about how they don’t use plastic straws anymore. They give out paper ones if you’re buying a milkshake, but otherwise, you have to fend for yourself in the soft drink department. And now I’m noticing the same thing here at Laurier.
This is such an amazing step in an environmental protection direction and it makes me so happy every time I find another location that no longer gives out plastic straws. It’s smart to move away from them: they are single-use, end up right in the garbage, and are distributed every time someone purchases a drink. They are also super easy to phase out: you just start using paper or don’t put a lid on the drink.
However, I do feel like plastic straws are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to plastic waste. I’m going to use Laurier’s own food court as an example again. When you buy a soft drink, you grab a paper cup, a paper straw, and a … plastic lid. So for every plastic straw that no longer gets handed out, a plastic lid is still being distributed.
That isn’t to say that the transition away from straws isn’t amazing, because it absolutely is. We are reducing the plastic output that the university produces and replacing it with something more sustainable. My only argument is that the straw is an easy target. Like I said before: it’s an easy problem to identify and it’s easy to eliminate. It doesn’t take much work to eliminate the straw from our daily lives. But what about the other plastic we consume and throw away that is harder to move away from?
I want to challenge us to do even better. We need to work to eliminate plastic even when it is less convenient to phase out, or more challenging to substitute. The straw is an awesome first step, but it is by no means a victory against plastic and I don’t want us to feel like we’ve won just because we’ve made this one step. We have to do more.
Maybe we can call it a victory once we get rid of those plastic lids.