No more slurping through plastic straws in San Francisco - Sensationalist Headlines

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/No-more-slurping-through-plastic-straws-in-San-13102063.php Soon to be heard in San Francisco: the last slurp through a plastic straw. That’s because the city’s about to make them illegal. The Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance Tuesday that will prohibit the city’s restaurants, bars and retailers from providing customers with plastic items — such as straws, stirrers or toothpicks — beginning July 1, 2019. If the ordinance passes the board on the second reading next week, it will then be presented to Mayor London Breed. If the mayor signs the measure, retailers will also be prohibited from selling single-use food service products made with fluorinated chemicals. Bars, restaurants and cafes would also only be allowed to provide products, such as condiment packets and napkins, upon request or at self-service stations. “This is about changing people’s behavior,” said Supervisor Ahsha Safaì, who co-sponsored the ordinance along with Supervisor Katy Tang. “Do you really need to offer a straw with a glass of water?” Some restaurants and bars in the city have already taken steps to cut back on their use of plasticware. Nicole Kozlowski, a bartender at Pagan Idol, said during a public comment period last week that the Financial District bar started saving $900 a month on its Recology bill once it switched to compostable paper straws. “The amount of waste and garnishes that were ending up in landfill ... was staggering,” she said. Other U.S. cities, such as Seattle, San Luis Obispo and Malibu, have also taken steps this year to ban various plastic foodware. Also on Tuesday, the supervisors pushed a motion to consider banning cannabis stores from Chinatown to the July 31 meeting.

how the heck will they drink these? https://i.ytimg.com/vi/W79a4F53GEU/maxresdefault.jpg the ice slush melts paper straws (speaking from experience, from an animal safe plastic-free zoo)

A metal straw. "it's too inconvenient to do my part for the environment by carrying my own reusable straw or returning one to the store" isn't a valid excuse. May as well just never close my fridge or turn off the shower either because that's a mild inconvenience. Like, literally just have a refundable deposit for metal straws. Stamp the straws with business logo, and when one is returned the person gets that amount of money back. Meaning, you could take your beverage to go, and next time you go to use their business, you either return or use the same straw again. It's literally not that big of a deal but people are really just fucking lazy.

A few of my favorite tea places in the area are having trouble finding replacements because they depend on plastic straws. All around a good idea though.

The issue with that is now you have to carry a straw that is covered in whatever you were drinking around all day. majority of places that use plastic straws are fast food or disposable cups meaning you wouldn't have a way to clean the straw after use if you need to use it elsewhere or for transportation. Keeping stuff like metal straws/forks around is just impractical to most people (I don't even know where id keep a metal straw on me anyway throughout the day because I don't carry a purse or backpack). Not that I support more plastic waste btw.

There's some fantastic straws I've used from some local chains that are made entirely out of plant-matter. No plastic at all. They're sturdier, if a bit less flexible, and not much pricier. There's no need to use plastic straws anymore. Next step is plastic bags as a whole, then plastic wrapping. Anything to get that shit out of the hands of idiots who just fling it on the side of the streets.

A compostable paper napkin to wipe it off or wrap it in. Problem solved. Keep it in your car or something. Either way, it's such a trivial thing for people to be so fervently against.

Carry it around in a plastic bag.

I guess that's why I'm starting to see paper straws

Ultimately banning plastic straws does little to nothing for the environment and believe it or not straws are made of plastic because plastic works much better than the alternatives, may even preclude of better plastic technology that would bypass pollution issues entirely. If you really care about the environment you need to be targeting big industry and the literal rivers of trash in many parts around the world. While personal efforts can be admirable, this feels like yet another scapegoat to push blame for enviornmental damage onto individuals when the reality is the megacorps are successfully blocking all attempts to stop them from poisoning the air land and sea.

If you're just going to pass the buck to the "larger contributor" because you're too lazy to do your part then you may as well just go all the way up to saying the only people who should be doing anything are China/India/Asia in general since they technically "contribute" far more to global pollution than anyone else.

So now you have paper waste everywhere instead. Its compost-able, but that paper has to come from somewhere.

Very few people on this Earth can positively affect how large corporations and 3rd world countries pollute. The every day man can make a change by not using plastic straws. Even if this change is little to insignificant, it still has a positive impact. A million pennies is still $10,000.

Straws only amount to .02% (2000 tons out of 9 Million total) of all plastic waste from the US that enters the ocean. The United States itself only contributes .9% of the total waste entering the Ocean according to this study. Meanwhile China is contributing 27.7% for comparison. This ban on straws is basically going to contribute practically nothing at decreasing the overall problem of poorer countries with terrible waste management letting plastic hit the ocean.

This is the definition of “pointless conservation effort” i mean on the “”plus”” side, at least if a few customers gets super Mouth Herpes, they can at least have the board to blame

It really doesn't matter how much straws contribute to waste, at one point or another they have to go. Might as well be asap

You could make this argument for nearly anything that negatively impacts the environment even remotely. That isn't a good argument and basically indicates you don't actually care about the realities of the solutions.

But it's still true though, they need to go. They kill animals all the time and the downsides of their absence isn't anywhere close to the downsides of their presence

I don't think they constitute a "need" to go. There are far more plastic products people will continue to be using that output more plastic and have greater direct links to causing animal harm like soda-can links, plastic bags, and plastic netting. Banning straws will just lead to companies look for alternatives (that might be worse like in Starbuck's case) and probably be an inconvenience to handicap people. This really just comes off as a pretty random virtue campaign since I haven't seen numbers that indicate banning straws will do much for the environment or anything to indicate they will significantly reduce bodily harm to animals. I get the argument you are making, but the prioritization to ban straws is frankly ridiculous when considered with the overall problem.

At least I can still slurp a dick

Multiple things CAN be accomplished at once

How about the business just provides me with an alternative to a plastic straw that works perfectly fine for whatever product that business sells? Why make it more complicated then it needs to be? It is kinda inconvenient to have to pay a deposit, bring the straw back, and get the deposit back. It is even more inconvenient to carry a metal straw with me just so i can come back later. I'm all for helping the environment and doing my part, but I'm not taking straws that seriously. The main reason we have so many disposable items is because of sanitation, so keep the whole concept disposable but make it eco-friendly.

Reducing your use of single use plastic in general is a good idea. Though for large scale change I think we'll need to change how we make packaging and whatnot. Stuff you're ment to throw away should be biodegradable.

https://i.redd.it/5ylmzlp2qmb01.jpg just bring these bad boys back. problem solved.

Have project forgotten paper straws here???

attention is and always has been a limited resource

Just drink shit without the straw. Like, from a cup. There. You don't even need paper straws now. "what about milkshak--" Drink.that.shit.up

Soda-can links are photo-degradable and have been for decades. Plastic bags are already banned in California and had been banned in San Fransisco for years. Alternative straws already exist. I read the article and it brings up concerns about how the material conducts heat or degrades. Even if this is true, the sooner we become less reliant on single-use plastics the faster we can develop alternatives. Literally anything can be written off as a "random virtue campaign", this is not an argument. So is this you walking back what you said about him not caring about the "realities of the solutions?" You mentioned China earlier. What can I as an American do to get China to stop being so polluting?

The reality is that still will accomplish less than a fraction of a percent of the overall problem. Also I was talking about soda-links in terms of their ability to hurt animals, not their biodegradability. Straws can also photo-degrade overtime too. So your point here is really mute. We might as well ban plastic cutlery if someone truly feels banning straws is a priority. This is a virtue campaign in the sense that the problem overwhelmingly will exist, but people are feeling like they immensely accomplished something despite +99% still existing. And yes, it would show some actual thoughtfulness if people campaigned and put effort into highlighting who actually contributes majorly to the plastic waste issue. Whether there are viable solutions to pressure those countries is a different argument, but it would show that the person understands the actual main problem.

One of the biggest problems is that San Francisco has a huge boba milk tea culture for western standards. Taking away the big straws made to suck up the tapioca from the bottom of the tea would essentially ruin the drink that's become a staple of my and many others' diet. It just feels like a huge solution to a small problem.