In the News
Facts:
Seattle, WA to ban single-use straws Summer of 2018
Cites that have already banned single-use plastic straws: Malibu, CA, Davis, CA, Obispo, CA, (Berkely, CA is under consideration), Miami Beach, FL, Fort Myers, FL, Naples, FL.
International cities and nations are banning single-use plastic straws: the United Kingdom government has proposed banning, Glasgow municipal buildings, the European Union is pushing for all of its members to ban all single-use plastic straws by 2030, Taiwan will phase single-use straws out by 2030, and Vancouver is working on ban or limiting legislation.
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McDonalds in the Uk is banning Plastic Straws!
BBC News- What companies are banning straws?
New York Times- Seatle, Malibu, and other cities ban plastic straws
Restaraunts and Governments targetting plastic straws
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The U.S. uses over 500 million straws per day.
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About 95% of plastic straws used in the U.S. uses will end up in a Gyre.
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Plastic straws take 200 years to decompose in the right conditions.
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Straws are on the top ten list of marine pollutants
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Last year alone, there were enough inappropriately disposed plastic straws that it could provide a person a straw per day for 1,250 years or about 450,000 days.
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Straws used daily in the U.S. from end to end could circle the Earth twice.
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An organization picked up straws on beaches and found that if they lay all the straws end to end, it could stretch 840 miles of the California coastline
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Did you know that humans get plastic fragments inside their bodies when they eat some fish that have been exposed to plastic
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Straws are too small to be recycled
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Straws are made of polystyrene (the same plastic that makes expanded polystyrene foam which is called Styrofoam which takes 500 years-forever to decompose)
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If we don't stop polluting at the rate we are right now, then by 2050 we are going to have more plastic in our ocean than fish
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100,000 animals in the oceans are killed from plastic annually
Informative Links
Strawless Ocean: Why are plastic straws bad?
National Geographic Article
Live Green
The Last Straw
Say No to plastic Straws
How much plastic in ocean
Ted Talks Video
4 Reasons you should stop using plastic straws
​HOW STRAWS ARE DESTROYING THE ENVIRONMENT
Our Data
We surveyed businesses and restaurants in and around Austin. At each location, we counted how many straws had been served, how they were served, and personal preference.
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Here's what we found:
Out of the 54 establishments that we surveyed, 842 plastic straws had been served. That's actually quite a bit, considering we only conducted this survey for a 2 weeks. However, we did find that way more straws are served than that, based on other research that has been done. We would need to continue counting and collecting data to get a better number, but overall, it's a lot of straws.
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Out of the 409 people we surveryed, we found that 303 prefer to use straws. This is unfortunate because that means people do like using straws, based on our numbers. We kind of thought that the number would be way smaller, but it wasn't. That means we do need to suggest alternatives to plastic straws, like paper, bamboo, metal, or other home made options, instead of plastic.
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We also looked into how servers give out straws. Do they serve a guest a straw without asking? Do they ask if a guest wants a straw? Do they only serve a straw if a guest asks for one? Is there just a straw dispenser out and available for customers to serve themselves? We found that most of the time, the server either gave the guest a straw, without asking, or their was a dispenser. This is a big problem, because this is why so many plastic straws are being use. They are very easily accessible, and they are being served even if the guest doesn't want a straw, and in excess.
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Do you want to add to our data? Here is the form that we fill out after we collect more data from businesses.
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Please feel free to answer these questions next time you see a plastic straw.
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