Now that state lawmakers are back in Olympia, they can start making some serious and important changes around here. The legislative agenda this session includes, for instance, legalizing home grows, addressing the state's failing mental health care system, passing a budget, and banning plastic straws across Washington state.
The first three are vital. The last one is not.
Seattle banned single-use plastic straws in 2018—a move that was cheered by many conservationists and others who concerned about litter, pollution, and seabirds—and this session, state Sen. Patty Kuderer has introduced a bill to ban them across the state.
“It's taking a stand on plastic pollution,” a spokesperson for Greenpeace told KIRO 7 after the local ban passed. “And really taking a stand on what needs to happen, a ban on all single-use plastic products.”
According to Greenpeace, 40 percent of the plastic floating around in the ocean and choking seabirds is single-use plastic. But while this very well may be true, straws make up a tiny, tiny, tiny part of that waste—less than a quarter of one percent by weight. We could ban straws all over the world and the impact on the planet would still be negligible.
Banning, say, plastic utensils would make a much bigger difference. Banning plastic bottles—or just instituting bottle deposits—would make an even larger one. And if you really want to clean up the oceans, banning fishing, an industry responsible for a Great Pacific Garbage Patch, would be a good place to start.
Still, I understand why environmentalists and lawmakers push for this sort of legislation. "The key to solving the plastics problem is many baby steps," Curtis Ebbesmeyer, a beachcomber and a retired UW oceanographer, told me. "You're not going to solve it with one draconian solution. It takes an awful lot of effort to do this, so the only way we're going to be able to do it is item by item."
It's also symbolic. Sure, banning straws in Washington state might not actually solve the plastic problem, but it signals that we care about the planet and are willing to sacrifice something for it. But while giving up straws might be easy for most people, for some people, straws aren't a luxury. They're quite literally how some people stay alive.
Alice Wong, a writer in San Francisco who uses both a wheelchair and ventilator, wrote about what straws do for her in Eater, and what they do is allow her to drink.
"Two items I always ask with my drinks are a lid and a plastic straw, emphasis on plastic," she writes. "Lids prevent spillage when I’m navigating bumpy sidewalks and curb cuts; straws are necessary because I do not have the hand and arm strength to lift a drink and tip it into my mouth. Plastic straws are the best when I drink hot liquids; compostable ones tend to melt or break apart."
If you are unable to lift a cup to your mouth, a straw gives you autonomy and independence. They may seem like cheap, throwaway goods for people who are healthy, but if your teeth are sensitive because you're going through treatments like cancer and radiation or if you have Parkinson's or some other tremor, you're going to need a straw and plastic simply works best.
Our planet is under serious threat. The climate is warming, the oceans are growing acidic, forests are burning, water is drying up, species are dying off, and all of this is a direct result of human beings and how we treat this planet. But banning plastic straws isn't going to save the turtles or the polar bears and it certainly isn't going to save us. So while we do need state and federal lawmakers to take on the challenges facing our planet, the only thing a straw ban will accomplish is making it more difficult for people with disabilities to take part in public life. And I'm not sure why Washington lawmakers should spend their time and energy pushing for that.
That said, if you don't need a straw, don't use one—and not just because it's bad for the planet. They're also not great for our bodies. "Plastic is in everything," Ebbesmeyer said, "and the effects mimic estrogen. Every time a man sucks up a straw, he's losing a few sperm."