McDonald's To Test Plastic-Straw Alternatives in US Later This Year (usatoday.com)

Under pressure by environmentalists, McDonald's has announced that it will start testing alternatives to plastic straws at select locations in the U.S. later this year. From a report: The burger giant also announced that it will adopt more eco-friendly paper straws across all its 1,361 restaurants in the United Kingdom and Ireland, a region where the company started testing the alternative to plastic straws earlier this year. The regional rollout begins in September. Single-use straws are the scourge of the packaging-waste world because they don't easily biodegrade and aren't really necessary for most people when it comes to gulping a soft drink. The activist group SumOfUs estimates that every day, McDonald's alone dispenses millions of plastic straws that customers soon discard, leaving them to litter beaches or clog waterways and fill trash dumps.

Comments

Re:Alternative?

[houghi]

Don't drink and drive.

Re:What a ridiculous premise.

[thegarbz]

I partially agree, the problem isn't the plastic straws, it is the lack of collection and recycling .

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The problem isn't plastic straws, the problem is plastic. Straws are just a really frigging easy place to start dealing with the problem.

Re:Thoughts from a diver

[Creedo]

Underwater aesthetics should decide how we all live our lives?

On behalf of the rest of the goddamned planet that has to pick up after shit stains who quip about this, please feel free to go fuck yourself. Too bad short sighted fuckwits aren't the only ones hurt by their asinine and selfish behaviors.