- One, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine.
This can't be good for the environment.
Put your hand up if you ditched using plastic straws
in the past couple of years and instead bought one of these.
If you did, you're not alone.
In 2018,
as straw bans passed across the country,
searches for metal straws on Etsy went up 208%
and reusable straw companies sold out.
This massive movement away from single use plastic straws
to reusables may have made you feel like you
were doing something great for the environment.
But did this movement really help
or did ditching plastic straws
actually do more harm than good?
To find out,
I'm gonna speak to Takunda Chitaka.
She's researched the environmental impacts
of making straws from different materials.
- Years ago,
we had the mining industry on the chopping block
and now we can't just pretend that doesn't exist
because we want to save the marine life.
- Then I'll connect with Emy Kane,
one of the creators of the #STOPSUCKING campaign
that has helped pass straw bans across the U.S..
- We've seen policy change in over 100 different cities,
and countries, and in states across the world,
and across more than 160 large and influential corporations.
- I'm Lucy Biggers,
and this is "One Small Step."
(upbeat music)
The year was 2018,
and all of a sudden,
everyone was talking about straws.
- Doesn't really look like a public enemy.
- [Reporter] It's one of the most divisive.
- Paper straws are evil.
- [Reporter] Most controversial issues in America today.
- Just create this black market of straws,
Big Straw,
and I can be like the El Chapo of Big Straw.
- As a sustainability video producer at the time,
I made several videos about restaurants and cities
that had banned plastic straws.
I even posted on my Instagram why you should stop sucking.
Here's why you should avoid plastic straws.
At the time, the logic was simple.
We're using way too much single use plastic
and much of it's ending up in our oceans.
Like this video that went viral
of a straw being pulled out of a turtle's nose.
So cutting out straws was the first step
in solving plastic ocean pollution.
As years have gone by,
I've learned a lot.
Like the fact that eight million tons
of plastic enter our oceans each year
and straws account for about 0.025% of that.
Or the fact that many people with disabilities
require plastic straws to drink or eat.
And while I still think refusing single use plastic
is a great first step
in lowering your environmental footprint,
I didn't anticipate this idea
of using less would be overtaken
by the rise in reusable straws,
which is why I now have nine of them.
And literally I bought none of them, okay?
I'm a sustainability producer.
People send them to me as gifts.
To understand the environmental impact
of straw alternatives,
I've reached out to PhD student to Takunda Chitaka.
She literally did her thesis on the environmental footprint
of different kinds of straws.
- Everywhere I went there was someone offering me a straw
of different types
and claiming it's so environmentally friendly,
and I was like,
"I don't really believe you and I don't think
that phrase means what you think it means."
So I was like, you know what?
I'm gonna unpack it.
I'm actually gonna find out
what the impact is of all these straws
to see whether we're actually moving forward in terms
of our environmental impact or we're going backwards.
- In her paper,
"In Pursuit of Environmentally Friendly Straws,"
Takunda did a life cycle assessment of five kinds
of straw materials in her home country of South Africa.
Single use plastic, glass, metal, paper, and PLA,
which is a kind of plastic derived from corn
that's supposed to be biodegradable
but only breaks down in certain conditions.
I did a whole video about it that you can check out.
- I went through a process of a life cycle assessment,
which is when you look at the impacts from
the very beginning.
So extracting your raw materials,
processing it to the very end
where you throw this item away or recycle it.
- Takunda found that metal straws
were less likely to be littered and end up in the ocean.
But because of the environmental impacts of mining,
refining, and shipping,
a metal straw would have to be used 37 times
for its impact to be less than using plastic straws.
- So that's what we call, you know, the break even point.
So you might as well use 20 single use straws
if you're not gonna use your metal enough times.
- Using Takunda's calculations,
in the case of my collection of nine straws,
which I am so proud of,
I would have to use them a total of 333 times
for them to be equal to plastic straws.
- I mean, they can become family heirlooms at this stage.
Put them in your will.
Let your grandkids use these straws.
- This breakeven idea is an important point,
because if we think about all the frenzy
around metal straws in 2018,
my guess is that most people
who bought those straws have not used them 37 times.
My friends and family,
many have lost them,
forgotten about them,
have gone back to using single use plastic.
- Reusable versus single use depends on your lifestyle.
If you are responsible enough
to make sure you carry your straw everywhere you go.
You know, always remember to bring it out
whenever you need it,
then reusable is a lifestyle for you.
But let's say you're someone who doesn't use straws often.
You know,
use them for that odd cocktail with the girls once a month.
If you look at the number
of straws you're gonna use in an entire year,
you might find that it actually has a lower impact
than buying a reusable one.
So you need to look at your lifestyle
and how much straw use plays into that.
- Takunda found that glass straws
were more sustainable than metal
and only had to be used 23 times to break even with plastic.
But she also addressed the issue that glass breaks,
adding further complications to these comparisons.
She found that paper was more sustainable
than single use plastic and PLA.
That's because it's less resource intensive to create
and it's more likely to biodegrade if it reaches the ocean.
But if the straw is really flimsy,
which we've all experienced at some point,
using more than one straw defeats the purpose.
- I had a situation.
I went out and I had a cocktails with my friends
and the waitress brought me a straw.
Few minutes later the straw is just gone.
There's just no straw to speak of.
It's not happening.
She comes back with a plate of straws.
You know, this waitress gave me like a plate of five straws
and she's like, we've been getting complaints.
Trust me, you'll need them.
At that stage,
if I'm using five paper straws to drink one drink,
that's not doing any good.
I might as well use a plastic straw
and make sure it goes to landfill
so it doesn't kill the turtles.
The quality also matters.
- And also if you're using that single use plastic,
like you said,
and it's going to landfill 'cause you live in a place
where you're not littering it yourself in a city
with good waste management,
the chances of that plastic straw ending up
in a turtle's nose is almost zero.
- Absolutely.
- Takunda's research also found
that PLA plastic made from corn is sold
as compostable or biodegradable,
but that its marine biodegradability hasn't been proven.
- When I was interacting with the restaurateurs,
they actually told them that they were being marketed
to them as biodegradable.
As a restaurateur, you're like this is great.
The customers are gonna love it
and they're gonna market them biodegradable,
not knowing that the person who claimed this
was not being truthful.
So in that case,
we found case of inadvertent greenwashing.
They don't mean to but it happens
'cause they're being fed bad information.
- Do you think that plastic and the way
that it's talked about right now in public discourse
is unfairly vilifying this material
or is the criticism of plastic legitimate?
- We have to accept the good with the bad.
I always say I'm not pro plastic.
I'm not anti plastic.
I just think we need to be more realistic
and responsible when it comes to plastic.
- Dozens of cities and organizations
have put some ban on plastic straws.
I was curious what Takunda thought of these laws.
- When you're creating a ban,
are you creating a ban that is specific to your region
or are you creating a ban based on
what you've seen online based on, you know,
you've seen the river waters in Indonesia.
If you then live in a country,
so say South Africa,
we have a high bottle recycling rate.
If the government decided to ban bottles
because they saw a photo for a river filled
with bottles in Indonesia,
that's not fit for purpose.
So the first thing you need to understand
when you're making a ban,
is that item a problem in your country
or do you just see on social media
and you wanna feel like you're doing something?
Another thing about these bans is what's the alternative?
You're creating a ban,
but what happens after you have this ban?
What is gonna fill the gap?
Is that item gonna actually do good or take us back
when it takes its environmental home?
(upbeat music ends)
- Emy Kane is a Senior Director
of Digital for Lonely Whale,
a nonprofit founded by actor Adrian Grenier,
which is focused on decreasing plastic pollution
by raising awareness,
working with corporate partners,
and educating young people.
Lonely Whale created the viral celebrity led
#STOPSUCKING campaign in 2017
that raised the issue of plastic straws
and preceded several straw bans
in cities and companies across the U.S.
- I will stop sucking.
- We will all stop sucking.
♪ We will all stop sucking ♪
- If you do.
- What do you think were the biggest benefits
from this campaign and the biggest changes
that have occurred because of it?
- So I think the biggest successes of this campaign
were probably that we got people talking about plastic
in really interesting places.
It got people talking about plastic in the boardroom,
in airports,
places where again,
plastic or climate change weren't really a kind
of a water cooler topic.
- Can you talk more about that connection
between the straw campaigns and climate change awareness?
Because I guess I just don't see the direct connection
between not using a plastic straw and climate change.
One is cutting down your waste
but it's not necessarily like lowering carbon emissions.
- I think when you look at it,
the straw is such almost like a perfect way in.
You know, it is that gateway plastic
but it's also that gateway conversation
to understanding what is plastic?
What is this consumption?
What it this behavior that I'm even, you know,
kind of participating in.
But I think it's that moment of mindfulness
that really brings people kind of to that aha moment,
and understanding, yes,
it is a bigger systemic issue.
- One of the other backlashes that I saw
when it first came out was the disabilities community
and people having access to plastic straws.
Was that something that you were anticipating
and then how did that inform your campaign?
- That was an important conversation to be had.
So it's truly one that I'm grateful
that we came under fire for that and we were able
to not only draw a really strong commitment internally
but also think thoughtfully about like,
yeah, what does the intersection of ableism
or disability rights have with the environment,
in any policy leave that is related
to single use plastic straws,
we always try to make sure that folks
that do require a plastic straw have access.
So whether that is asking for a plastic straw
and receiving one without questions asked
or whether that's a certain number
of other sort of, kind of again,
like policy reinforcements that are there
to protect the individual.
But that is definitely a key kind
of driver in any policy changes.
Making sure that you've got folks within
that community actually part of the policy process.
- I feel like people going out
and buying a ton of metal straws,
I was like, well, kind of misses the point.
So I'm curious to know, like, what is your take on that
and did you see any of the responses to the straw ban
and go, oh, well,
I didn't actually mean that.
- I think some of the things that I saw
that were a bummer were things
that included policies that allowed bio-plastics
or you know, so compostable plastics in areas
that don't have industrial composting facilities.
And you're like, ah!
Not only does the business likely not understand
that they've been greenwashed.
Now they're also greenwashing their customers.
And so, like you said, intent versus impact.
It is a bummer to see kind of those intentions misplaced,
and then also to like, you know,
outright banning straws or other items
that are needed by folks
that require them for accessibility.
- Why do you think straws matter as a symbol
of this movement that has gotten
so much attention over the last few years?
- Straws matter because they were kind of that again,
like that kick starter
to the whole conversation around plastic.
I think if perhaps we hadn't offered the everyday person
that fun or funny joke that they can make
with their family member,
then I'm not sure if we'd be having the same kind
of conversation today generally around plastics
or climate change.
It might still feel to it too inaccessible
for the everyday person.
So I think that for that reason alone,
straws do matter.
- So did ditching plastic straws do more harm than good?
Honestly, when I was preparing for this video,
I was leaning toward yes.
I'm concerned about access to plastic straws
for people with disabilities
and I do think the rise in reusables,
it's pretty wasteful.
But talking with Emy reminded me that a few years ago,
no one was talking about single use plastic.
So although you could argue the straw campaign
and some of the reaction to it hasn't been perfect,
it did do a good job of bringing the conversation
of sustainability and single use plastic
into the public consciousness and it has created changes.
But like anything that goes mainstream,
there is going to be misinterpretation,
and I think the rise of buying these trendy reusables
is not necessarily the best outcome of the straw campaign.
Talking with Takunda also taught me a lot
and she studied the impacts
of straws in her home country of South Africa.
But she stressed to me
that the results could be completely different
in a different part of the world,
depending on if your energy is coming
from renewables or coal,
if the materials are found locally or imported.
It's really an important reminder
that there is no one size fits all.
These single use plastic campaigns
are so focused on the end of life
that they tend to ignore the upstream impacts of production,
which we've learned in the case
of metal is way worse than plastic.
So here's what you can do.
If you're able to,
refuse single use plastic where you can.
It's the best way to lower your personal footprint.
But stop buying reusable items you're not going to use.
That's all for this episode.
Thank you so much for watching.
I hope you learned a lot and let me know in the comments
if you think ditching straws was a good or bad idea.