Plastic straws have been used worldwide for the past six decades. It has become natural to plop a straw in your cup when enjoying a refreshing beverage. But recent debate over their environmental impact begs the question: are these utensils as bad as everyone makes them out to be?
Lexington High School recently made the switch from paper straws back to plastic ones. Although they may be more convenient than paper straws, plastic straws should be banned from the LHS cafeteria and replaced by compostable ones because they are harmful to the environment.
Plastic, unlike paper, is not biodegradable. While paper straws easily decompose in soil, plastic straws take much longer to break down.
“All these plastic straws, like all plastic[s], take forever, almost hundreds of years, to decompose. On top of that, when they decompose they don’t become something better,” Lin Jensen, Town Meeting representative and Green Team member, said.
Even when the plastic straws are incinerated, smoke containing toxins is released into the atmosphere. By continuing to use plastic straws, the school actively contributes to the release of toxins into the environment. Additionally, toxins leached into bodies of water can be ingested by humans and animals, leading to sickness and disease.
“In general it’s just something that we never really needed in the first place, and on top of that, it’s bad for us. The plastic thing is a huge problem because it’s in every part of human life. So we start with the low-hanging fruits, things that are easily replaceable and [which] we think we may not even need in the first place,” Jensen said.
Although the negative effects of microplastics on the environment are devastating, it is an amendable issue. By replacing plastic straws with paper or compostable straws, we can help minimize the far-reaching impacts of plastic waste. The short lifespan of a plastic straw is not worth the centuries of decomposition and pollution that ensue after it has been thrown out. It is our job to step up and act on what is within our control by eliminating their use in school.
Despite the obvious benefits to the environment, the initial switch to paper straws led to some disapproval among students because of their poor structural integrity.
“I found that after a few minutes of drinking out of the paper straws, I started to have little bits of paper mixed in with my smoothie. It was not a very pleasant experience to drink from the smoothies,” Tate Aldrige, a freshman, said.
Aldrige also suggests that there are many other alternatives that are less damaging to our planet than plastic straws.
“I think the compostable ones,” Aldrige said. “Similar to the ones at CoCo [would] work great because they don’t disintegrate as easily.”
The current plastic straws may be more convenient, but five minutes of use can have decades of consequences. There are many ecological issues with a lot of daily materials, and we can start solving them bit by bit with a simple switch to biodegradable straws.