It is so obvious, and has been known for years, yet the EU banned plastic straws because of the waste in the oceans, so now every drink tastes like a schoolbook. Well done EU...
There are starch-based "plastic" utensils that look/feel like a slightly more matte version of the plastic most people are used to. The school my partner works at used them as a trial for a year. They had straws, spoons, forks, knives and plates made from it.
The problem is they are more expensive than regular plastic or paper/cardboard, and people in general seem to be unwilling to pay that bit extra to keep non-biodegradable waste down. So everyone ends up with paper-based straws, etc, or sticking with plastics instead.
In this case, they literally get what they pay for, because after the trial, they're complaining about all the paper products instead of budgeting to continue with the starch-based solution that was so very much better.
I wonder how they break down outside of a compost environment? My company uses "compostable" plastics which feel like normal plastic. I've used the same compostable clear plastic cup for months on end and it isn't showing any signs of degradation. I suspect it would break down in a proper compost pile(high temps and such) but outside of that environment it seems as durable as traditional plastic. Hopefully in an environment like the ocean it would be susceptible to bacteria and fungi but I wonder if that is sufficient.
Our local composting company explicitly excludes compostable utensils and food containers. Compostable doesn't mean biodegradable. For example, compostable cardboard food containers may be coated with perfluoro compounds to prevent liquids from soaking into the cardboard. These don't biodegrade.
Yes, that also goes for paper cups with the wax coating. They don't biodegrade and they aren't recyclable because of the wax. That's probably the same coating you mention. It seems that this solution just replaces one problematic material with another when it coats something that would otherwise be biodegradable.
Yes, lots of "biodegradable" products do have PFAs. Including most of the paper straws that are supposedly better than plastic ones. That's a result of corporate lobbying right there.
The point of the products I mentioned is that they don't contain PFAs. They are starch and cellulose. Cellulose just so happens to look and behave an awful lot like plastic. If you've ever seen those novelty see-through rolling papers, they're the same thing but without the starch. You're not smoking PFAs with them.
The process is expensive. It's hard to convince people the extra costs are actually worth it in the end. Hopefully they keep working on the products and discover some manufacturing efficiencies. But it is like competing real fruit beverages against big-name colas - it's a tough battle to win.
My understanding is that they are starch and cellulose, so I'd expect them to eventually completely degrade like any other plant material. I'm not an expert, but that seems to be the point of products made with it.
Our liquor store (LCBO) used to have bags made from the same stuff. When our provincial premiere got everyone to charge 5c for each plastic bag, they just stopped using it entirely and went to paper bags. I liked those original compostable/recyclable ones because they were less stretchy and therefore less likely to break than normal plastic grocery bags, and way easier to carry because of the handles.
But the same reasoning applied - it was more expensive than paper bags, so that's all they use there now, too.
I've been using a wooden desk for decades and it's not showing any signs of degradation either, yet wood waste is not an environmental problem. Compostable plastics degrade very slowly compared to other compostable materials. Your normal garden compost heap probably doesn't break them down in a year. But they do decompose much faster than normal plastic, they don't stick around in the environment for millennia.
A well protected / maintained desk versus the usual stuff thrown into a rotting heap of other delicious-to-bugs and vulnerable-to-water items isn't a realistic comparison, so I don't get the gyst of this response.
Besides, I was talking about a set of products that are made from starch and cellulose. They'll break down real fast with the rest of the compost. Faster than your desk that also would degrade and get eaten up under those same conditions.
Paper straws are inferior in every respect except not be plastic. People encounter them regularly and the plastic variety never represented a significant portion of the problem. So in some ways the imposition of paper straws feels insulting. No one is going after tire manufacturers or commercial fishing companies, but straws got taken first. It feels like the whole campaign to guilt people for their personal carbon footprint. It’s just so atomized and so far downstream of actual issues.
I honestly don't get the point of straws, other than for handicapped people or small children (who have washable sippy bottles and cups anyway). Are people that bad at drinking from cups and glasses?
The can protect sensitive teeth, prevent smearing of makeup, make it easier to drink while walking, help prevent spills of colored liquids onto stainable shirts, help modulate the speed at which you are drinking, keep ice from hitting your teeth, make it easier to finish think drinks like shakes, allow people who are convalescing to drink easily, and probably some things I didn’t think of.
It's the straw + lid combo that is most advantageous. It lets you drink in a vehicle without worrying about spilling. Reusable options like sippy cups are a non-starter for any sort of takeout or fast food.
I recently spent a week in Texas and I must say, the disposable plastic bags and plastic straws were a big improvement in quality of life. I'd gladly pay some extra fees to offset the environmental damage. Banning such things seems like an emotional move, not an evidence-driven approach to improving the environment.
Sippy cup lids like they've got at Starbucks now aren't too bad. Enough height that you get most of the spill control from a flat lid plus a straw. Sometimes I miss drinking from the bottom up, but it's ok enough for me. Certainly better than a paper straw, yuck.
> And, for what it's worth, people who complain about paper straws remind me of sulky toddlers. Just FYI.
Banning plastic straws was a useless feel-good measure that raised costs and reduced quality of life (ever so slightly). It makes no difference to the ocean, as Western countries don't have rivers of trash flowing directly into it, and straws are an insignificant amount of plastic relative to everything else we use.
So I'll complain readily about plastic straws because terrible legislation turns the majority center against the cause. We could have used that political capital and public support to make a real difference, but now we're worse off than where we started.
Wait, the article you linked said he called manufacturers to get a range of daily production/market estimates of straw production. Hardly seems fair to say based on "nothing".
The kid estimated every American (all ~325 million) used nearly 2 straws per day. It's just such an absurdly unrealistic number.
I don't know how we can accept he conducted actual investigative research at the age of 9, particularly when the data is so wildly off from reality, no records were kept, and he can't even name some of the companies he supposedly based his "data" off of.
That... Doesn't strike me as absurd. When I was a kid, I'd definitely use more than that.
McDonalds serves like 70M meals a day alone. Customers often grab a couple straws and use one. Ask anyone who has worked fast food -people take three straws and discard two all the time.
If you include straws like those little red coffee straws and juice box straws I can absolutely see hitting 500M.
The number of at least 100M, so he got the order of magnitude right, I'm sure.
Nobody cares how many straws you own... the (potential) issue was how many straws are discarded per day, and specifically how many made their way into waterways. It's no where near 500M - that is indeed an absurd number.
Being one order of magnitude right isn't sufficient here (he could have just as easily made up 999M and still be one order or magnitude right) - particularly when fabricated "data" was used to push for legislation that impacted so many people yet has had so little effect on the environment.
Additionally, this kind of stuff causes the public to lose faith in "science" and our legislators that push this type of agenda through.
Not one entity stopped to research the data themselves - they used a 9 year old's made up data to ram through laws. Really should give us all pause when considering new legislation.
