Amen !!!!

While I am all about saving the environment, My problem with no straws is more of a personal health issue. Using a straw, I avoid any germs or bacteria that have been placed on the glass during handling. So why don't restaurants use paper straws? These paper straws could be recycled with the rest of the restaurants paper.

May be we have solved a big problem here in the villages as to why the ER is so full of people and 8 hour wait to see a doctor and no rooms in the hospital. People here just dont care about the sticky salt and pepper shakers at the table or putting their lips on a glass that you have no knowledge how clean it is. After sneezing at the table covering your mouth with a tissue then salt and peppering your food with shakers that havent been wiped down or having something like c-diff (alot of that here in TV) which can stay on hard surfaces for 3 months and very contagious. So to you people that think you cant catch something from a simple thing like going out to eat don't complain about your long wait at the ER or your local walk in clinic.

Other than cooking oil, I do not believe that MOST restaurants recycle anything - too costly for them.

Restaurants weigh costs, benefits of recycling | Nation's Restaurant News

FredF

Amazon has metal straws that can be carried with you when dining out! Non breakable and YOU know how clean they are! Great job folks.

You do not want to think about it
 

A lot of paper is recycled. The brown paper napkins-hum
were they diapers in the past?

Not sure I really want to know.

I find it sadly amusing. We are forced to BUY paper bags to have the trash company collect our recycle-able lawn waste.
In the past, we used to use corrugated boxes. They too, made from paper-plant material-will also decompose.

Oh. on the trash subject, you/we need to buy plastic bags for your trash. Every solution has it's negatives

Straws!!
 

Thank You Sunglow for your kind and compassionate post abt reducing the use of plastic straws.

To some of those who responded: this post was not abt sanitation or hygiene but an effort to enlighten us to take action to protect the environment, ecological balance and reduce waste and pollution.

I hope all will think abt the importance of Sunlow's post and what we can do to make a difference. Thank you

Simply burn garbage in a waste to energy clean inciinerator like just about all of Europe has been doing.

This way you wont have to worry about straws!

Justifying straws
 

Perhaps you did not see this thread as being about sanitation, but that was a logical path for the discussion because it explained the utility of the straws. It justified the use of straws.

I absolutely intend to continue to use straws.

And so will about 7 billion other people on the planet

There is no question there is a problem, but we cannot solve it all by ourselves.

The idea of straws helping end the pollution problem is noble but it seems bottled water bottles are a bigger pollutant

I think the use of straws is fine for sanitation purposes, as long as they're paper. Or carry your own reusable straw if your immune-compromised or worried about germs.


The thread was about plastic straws ending up in landfills and polluting the oceans, rivers, and streams. The solution is paper straws. Also, where I live part of the year, straws are never used. You get your drink of choice in a glass, no straw. I don't see people getting sick from it. If we can handle paper money and public doorknobs...

Ohiobuckeye
 

I agree people are getting excited about everything. If they do this then it'll be something else. But we do have the technology to make a lot of things degradable!

Just wanted to thank you for this post!! If you absolutely need to use straws I recommend ordering the silicone ones! Also, wondering if you have tried the shampoo bars? One bar is like 3 bottles of shampoo. No plastic to dispose of!!

Even safer to buy your own reusable, then the only person touching even the straw is you!! Silicone ones are best in my opinion. Amazon has a bunch!