Straws!
 

My husband and I are now asking servers at restaurants to please hold back the straws. After reading the facts about how many straws we use in the U.S. each year - 500 million DAILY - enough to circle earth 2.5 times! And they for the most part can't be recycled and end up in our landfills and our oceans. The Great Pacific garbage patch is twice the size of France and contains nearly 80,000 tons of plastic. I hope people will read this and will also ask their servers to hold back the straws.

I wish those flimsy one time use bags from ALL RETAIL STORES would get banned and force people to buy reusable bags; that would cut down on a lot of plastic waste.

That's definitely the last straw.

We try to always remember to take in our reusable bags. A habit I got into working in the Bay Area. There no one gives shoppers bags. You can purchase them or bring your own. That’s the way it should be everywhere.
I do love using a straw, but will be changing to a Bamboo or glass straw that I carry with me.
I read the same article as the OP and it’s frightening how huge the Great Pacific Garbage Patch or Pacific Trash Vortex actually is. They believe it is the size of Mexico. And we still don’t recycle or stop using shopping bags. Reflects pretty poorly on us all.

I prefer straws.
 

I prefer to drink through a straw at public restaurants for sanitary reasons. Too many food preparers handle drinks by the rim of the glass.

That’s another reason why I will be carrying my own!

If you got these "facts" from the internet, then they must be true. :ohdear::22yikes::rolleyes::sigh:

Next someone will want hand sanitizer's at each table.
For you germ a phobics..Just imagine how many germs have been transmitted by the simple act of pulling you chair up
let alone a server handling your glass

Last they shouldn't have tooth picks at the door..Imagine how many trees will be save.
Or they should pass a law..Tooth Picks can only be made from storm damaged trees

How about the lemon they put in your tea. Do you think it clean before it went in.

I think they should have hand sanitizers at the table. Some of the salt and pepper shakers are disgustingly sticky, never thought about the chairs but you are right. I like that fact that Lowe's has them at the entrance to clean the shopping cart handles.

Not quite straw-related, but...

About 20 years ago (during a period of countless air miles), I was on a SWA flight...going....somewhere. Time for beverage service and I asked for my usual Diet Coke.

The middle-aged Flight Attendant came back with the tray of filled plastic cups. I noticed that her routine for serving was to place one of those small napkins centered directly on the rim-then she would "claw" the drink from the top, only touching the napkin, and pass it over. I noticed that she did that each time.

Later on I spoke with her. She said "that's how I was trained". I wrote to the President of SWA complimenting her by name and recommended that this be a Standard in flight service. Got a boiler-plate letter back.

Imagine the bacteria and germs that could be transmitted by a busy FA hands over the flight time - especially the hand-to-mouth incidental contact during that drink-sip. Among the countless ways to pick up illness 'up there'.

I know you're just trying to be facetious, but the internet has allowed everyone to do their own research, determine what are actual facts and not depend on what "someone said"...which is often driven by emotional , knee-jerk reactions with an agenda.

Some people don't want to know actual facts and are happier that way, while other, more intellectually curious people...do.

Put me in the column of...Facts Matter.


As for straws, they are but one component of the trash fouling our environment...with personal water bottles being another. :ohdear:

Does anyone remember paper straws? They were biodegradable. It seems one of our giant live oaks could make a lot of paper straws and there would be no need for social action. If I carried a glass straw in the bottom of my purse, I am pretty sure I would die of an unspeakable illness. I have no idea what's been down in there. Or is down in there at the moment.

It's actually been determined, with scientific study...to be even bigger than that.. :ohdear:

Great Pacific Garbage Patch now three times the size of France - CNN

I've had people recently told me paper straws were being used in restaurants again. I watched an add about some poor sea turtle that had plastic straws stuck in his nostrils which was causing him to partially suffocate. I think his prank with his turtle friends went amiss!:a20: