Plastic Straws Aren’t the Only Issue

Plastic Straws Aren’t the Only Issue

The other day at work, a woman told me she was ashamed we had straws at our cafe. I told her that, fortunately, they are compostable and so will not end up in the ocean to hurt a sea turtle. She shrugged this off, determined to say more to me about what we should do. She asked if we could buy sippy cup tops. I told her that I didn’t order these things for the shop. I never have. She shrugged this off, looking slightly frustrated with my passivity regarding the torment of straws on wildlife. She left.

I didn’t want to get into it with her. I didn’t want to get mad at her, but she left, and I felt somewhat ashamed of myself and the cafe.

The viral video of a sea turtle wailing as a straw was pulled from its nose has created a trend that has even hit Starbucks. Everyone today wants to get rid of straws. I understand this impulse when we are faced with a horror like this video. But I don’t understand how people cannot see all the other plastic in the ocean. Really, straws and other large plastics, while tragic to see floating in any body of water, are not the largest concerns as far as plastic pollution. There are plastics running into oceans and streams from our laundry, all that polyester slowly breaking down in the heat of our washing machines and made invisible to our eyes. There is runoff from plastic factories around the globe. There is plastic running out of trash facilities, microscopic bits going down the drain and entering, not just noses, but the stomachs of animals, killing them slowly. There is just so much more to overwhelm our time with than straws. Most of the cups we use for those straws have more plastic in them and are more detrimental to the environment. But we fear the straw because of one horrific image.

And unfortunately it’s all too complicated. To break down the many ways that plastics affect our environment is to complicate the issue almost into oblivion. And we love simplicity. It’s easier to take in. And so we take that image of the turtle and blow it out of proportion. We say we should get rid of straws. But what about everything else? Do we do nothing? To just ban straws seems a little reductive of the issues at hand. And that seems to happen so much with issues regarding the environment.

I wanted to tell this elderly woman all this. I wanted to tell her that we were trying our best at the cafe to not use anything that couldn’t be composted in our facility. I wanted to tell her that we only have two small trash cans that we take out only at the end of the day. That we are trying to be a moral business, while still catering to our consumers. I wanted to tell her that her heart was in the right place, but that it’s just so much more complicated than just straws. But instead I stood there, passively waving her compassionate concerns aside as she left the cafe.