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. It just isn’t true that “most of those [plastic straws] end up in our oceans.” In the USA and the developed world generally most straws end up in landfills or incinerators. Where pollution ends up in the ocean is in the developing world. According to an article in the South China Morning Post “Just five Asian countries are responsible for more than half of the plastic waste in the worlds oceans.” The way to stop polluting the worlds oceans is to get everyone in the world to prosperity as fast as possible. Caring about the environment is a luxury good. We in the developed world can afford to care or at least signal that we care. Not so for the poor.

More than likely the plastic straw came from a country that can afford plastic but not landfills. How do we fix this problem? Free markets, capitalism and stable governments with rule of law are the solution. Everything else is pretty much self-congratulatory pablum.

What have I done? I have shown evidence that plastic straws used in the developed world are an almost insignificant contributor to ocean pollution. I’ve been cynical about the idea that we need to stop using plastic straws since they are a tiny part of the puzzle of ocean pollution. I’ve made a case that prosperity is the cure for the oceans. Next I’ll propose a way that you can really help to improve the environment, which you won’t do and you might be pissed at me for proposing it. I’m also going to write about the positives of plastic in the third world. If I get to it I’ll try to prove to you that prosperity cleans up harbors and saves fisheries. And finally I’ll make an argument that because we act based on stories not facts there is a good for individuals to stop using straws but not good for governments to ban them. Whew.