I’ve written a series of evolving posts about Plastic Straws. Here are links to all of them in sequential order. Starting with my first post ten years ago. Straws in Water Straws… Finally Straw Math Where did the Turtle get the Plastic Straw How Heather improves the Environment Plastic for the Poor The Ice Bucket Challenge for Straws Let me know what you think.
Howard Rotter Diving in the Philippines
In 2014 while my good friend, Howard, was wasting away from the progressive horror of ALS we suddenly had the Ice Bucket Challenge. It raised more than $115 million dollars to help fund ALS research. More importantly it gave me and many other friends of Howard something to do. It gave us a way to demonstrate that we cared. The money didn’t find a cure. Howard still died but we “didn’t stand idly by.”Read More »The Ice Bucket Challenge for Straws
Plastic has made poor peoples lives better. It has given them access to containers for liquid that they previously couldn’t afford. Let’s use buckets as an example.Read More »Plastic for the Poor
Heather wanted to save the environment so she stopped using plastic straws, she went to a beach cleanup event, she signed a pledge to use less plastic and started using reusable grocery bags.Read More »How Heather Improves the Environment
I Googled “Straws and Pollution” and on the first page of results there were a lot of ads and links that said roughly the same thing.
This one was particularly egregious. Read More »Where Did the Turtle get the Plastic Straw?
This is not a simple story with a shockingly memorable video. It is a collection of facts. I want to persuade you to direct your environmental attention into actions that will have a real effect on the environment and will not just be virtue signaling. here we go:
1000 straws weigh about 9 ounces (250 grams)
A gallon of fuel weighs about 6.3 pounds. So….Read More »Straw Math
I wrote a blog post in February of 2008 warning that Plastic Straws were an Environmental Abomination. https://simonburrow.com/?p=604 Straws in Water My opinion about straws and other environmental issues has evolved since then. Because of the video of the turtle and the straw being anti-straw has suddenly become popular. It is a great way of virtue signaling your love of the environment. In the next post I’ll rank straws as an environmental danger compared to leisure travel, driving or swimming pools.
One of the little changes that has snuck (snuck is the passive past tense of sneak. It is not recognized by the Microsoft word dictionary) up on us is the last few years is giving out straws with water at restaurants. It seems to me that using straws when they are not needed is an environmental abomination. But how did it happen? Did the straw makers association convince the staff at restaurants that the customers want straws in their water glasses? Or did it just… Read More »Straws in Water