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….a gallon of gasoline is the equivalent of 11,000 soda straws. The anti straw peoples websites say that 500 million straws per day are consumed in the USA (which sounds correct) it is the equivalent of 45,000 gallons of gasoline. According to the EPA we consume about 380 million gallons of gas per day. That means that about 8000 times more petrochemicals are used to drive cars than to make straws. So cars are a much more real danger to the environment than straws.

But you say “we have to drive but we can stop using straws and help save that poor turtle.” So I ask “do we have to visit Europe?” and “how do those straws (and other trash) get into the ocean?” In our last episode I linked to my ten year old post opposing the use of straws in water.  There is another thread in this story about how we can save the turtle who ate the straw. In our next episode we’ll take a look at some these questions.