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Disposable plastic food containers and wraps are probably the second greatest invention in the history of health and wellness. (The first being the flush toilet — that's indisputable.) The amount of food contamination and spoilage that has been prevented, and the illness that springs from that, has been revolutionary. It's a revolution we've taken for granted.
I want the plastic straws back. The paper ones are pretty terrible — little carcinogenic stir sticks that dissolve into your drink.
For a long time, green activists have been using video of wildlife in the South Pacific or Caribbean Sea struggling with some injury caused by plastic trash. Viewers are never informed that most trash in the ocean comes from Africa and South Asia. It isn't suggested that our contribution to the problem would be reduced by picking up litter in watershed areas to keep our plastic trash out of the rivers. (In the near future, the explosion of the freed jailbird population will need something to do...)
But finally, I found a paper replacement for a disposable plastic device I can get behind! The plastic 6-pack rings, which actually injure wildlife nearer to home could be replaced by a simple cardboard sheet with some holes punched in it. I haven't been able to google any images or announcements on this product change — maybe they're afraid of backlash — but I think, in totality, this is an improvement.
Discussion (27)
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I still get plastic straws in Texas. I find that you get plastic straws most places except places like California and Oregon.
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Those paper straws are an abomination.
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They are. They taste funny, they stick to your mouth, the insides of them stick together if you take too long to drink your drink, and--in the same circumstance--they unwind and fall apart before you're done. (I'm so old I remember the first iteration of paper straws many decades ago, and the (probable) reasons they were replaced with plastic as soon as such a thing became feasible. They weren't any better, and did all the same things, all those years ago.)
I rarely use straws at home. When I pick up fast food in a drive-through, I don't use them, and I throw the plastic straws from the bag into that storage thingy on the car console. A few years ago, I bought a package of 300 plastic straws (because I could) and keep it at home for emergencies. I expect it to last for the rest of my life.
I can also get behind the cardboard six-pack containers. For years, I've cut the plastic hoops on the other kind before chucking them in the trash, just as I always cut into the flat, and generally rather heavy, plastic bags that are used for things like sliced cheese, meat, and other food products. A few decades ago, I discovered a dead cat at the entrance to my driveway. She'd been scavenging, had found a cheese-related plastic bag (not one of mine), had stuck her face into it to get the bits out of the bottom of it, and--because she'd breathed while doing so, had created a vacuum which prevented her from getting the bag off her face. It was awful. When I throw such bags out, I slice into them, about half-way across, so that if such a thing ever happens with a bag I've thrown out, there's a place where the animal can get its claws into the bag, and pull it off its face.
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I was just listening to Catholic Answers Flannel Panel today and they went on and on about paper straws -- and straws in general. They surveyed their YouTube audience asking "what's worse?" No straw, paper straw, or plastic straw. The ranking was Paper, no straw, and plastic. I agree completely with @Dotorimuk. Paper straws are an abomination. I refuse to put those things in my mouth. I'd rather go without.
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