Do you enjoy sipping drinks through plastic straws?
Well if activists get their way,
you won't be allowed to anymore.
These must be banned, they say.
Why?
500 million plastic straws
are used in this country
every single day.
When celebrities speak, politicians listen.
Seattle recently banned straws
and other places want to do the same.
Straws suck
and we are no longer going to allow for plastic straws
here in San Francisco.
Their time has come and gone.
The idea that you're gonna ban straws
and save the world is ridiculous.
Angela Logomasini studies environmental issues
at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
What will banning plastic straws accomplish?
Probably nothing at all.
It might make some people in Hollywood feel good,
it might make some politicians feel good,
like they're doing something,
it might sound good at parties,
but it's not gonna solve any problems.
Plastic pollution in the ocean is a real problem,
but only about 1% of it
comes from the United States.
Of that 1%, a tiny amount comes from plastic straws.
But what about that
500 million number?
In the USA alone,
over 500 million straws are being used every single day,
most of which are going into our oceans.
Americans toss out
500 million straws each day.
An incredible 500 million plastic straws.
Where do they all get that number?
Every piece of plastic.
They got it from this child's school project.
He says he got the 500 million straws a day figure
through a phone survey he conducted
with straw manufacturers.
I started the project to reduce the number of straws.
The media just accepts his 500 million number.
But the actual number is much lower
according to the analysis firm Technomic.
Okay, so activists and media exaggerate the problem.
500 million.
Still they promised
it would be easy to get rid of the straws.
If we can reduce
something that is easy,
that is polluting to the environment,
that gets stuck in turtles' noses
and causes damage to the environment,
let's do that.
Progressive talk show host Ethan Bearman.
Sometimes we do need a little gentle, guiding hand
from government.
Government's gentle, guiding hand
will either ban straws
or order us to replace this cheap plastic straw
with ones like these
made of paper or bamboo.
Plastic doesn't actually biodegrade,
so unlike a lot of other things
paper, for example
actually breaks down into other components.
That's not a good thing.
That means paper straws break down
even while you're using them.
They get soggy,
they leak.
That's the beauty of plastic.
It's enduring.
A paper straw is gonna break down
while you're drinking with it.
Paper and bamboo straws aren't
environmentally pristine either.
Paper products take more energy
and more effort to produce.
You're gonna have a net negative environmental impact.
The paper doesn't degrade in a landfill either.
Everything is essentially mummified.
You're replacing a superior product with an inferior one
and you're asking people to pay more for it.
Doesn't make a lot of sense.
It doesn't, and the higher price is the final result.
Paper straws are eight times more expensive
to make than plastic straws.
Won't this hurt businesses?
I don't think so.
Maybe people won't use straws.
If it's $1.79 to get the fountain drink
at Joe's corner deli
that we're talking about,
and now it's $1.83,
I don't see that as being a huge difference
in the price.
This is what environmentalists say about
every policy they put out.
A few cents here,
a few cents there,
eventually it begins to be a burden.
We don't need straws.
You know a lot of things in life are not necessary
but beneficial and enjoyable.
Banning straws isn't gonna do anything
for the environment.
So what they're just trying to do
is take away my freedom for nothing in return.
As the environment has become cleaner,
that's become a specialty
of the environmental movement -
spend your money
on feel-good policies
that make no real difference.