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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.
... the new straws will be bayou-degradable.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
... the company started testing the alternative to plastic straws earlier this year
Some of us Slashdoters are old enough to remember a time before plastic straws. Yep, such a thing existed. Guess what we used, youngsters? That's right. Paper straws.
So you might say that plastic straws are the alternative to paper straws, and not the other way around.
Plastic straws? Taking up measurable landfill space? Contamination the oceans??
Most of the plastic in the oceans comes from a handful of Rivers in Asia. My guess is that it is manufacturing waste.
This is not a hard problem to solve, and it doesn't take stupid BS efforts like making a different kind of straw.
1. Implement, and actualize, heavy and escalating fines for littering.
2. Start negotiating a treaty that limits plastic discharge to oceans, similar to the existing open water treaties regarding contamination, with a comprehensive monitoring regime. Nations that fail to meet compliance goals should be fined and/or sanctioned.
Plastic straws take up a negligble amount of landfill space. If you want to reduce landfill usage, you need to start with the items that take up significant amount of space.
And if you want to reduce plastic contamination of the environment, you need to ban and monitor plastic emissions into the environment. Not shopping bags and straws in the first world only, but a global monitoring regime on ocean and sea discharge waterways with standardized sampling and metrics. Believe it or not, this would probably be cheaper than the faith-based remedies of reusable shopping bags and paper straws.
Charge $5 for the cup, don't charge for the soda, or charge a nominal amount. People will start bringing their own reusable cups or bottles very quickly.
Or (assuming they're not doing away with lids), design the lids like takeaway coffee lids -- tear out a portion to have a small "hole" for drinking.
It's pretty obvious that this is coming from the group of people who are hell-bent on restricting people's freedom of movement. How are people supposed to be able to move freely about the country if they can't eat and drink while driving?
You don't have to be a genius to see the obvious accessibility issues with eliminating straws entirely. What might be more reasonable is to not supply a straw unless one is asked for.
The biggest problem I can see with paper straws is that if you take too long to finish your drink, then you can end up with pulp in your soda or juice or what have you from the straw, and putting a coating on the straws to prevent this usually makes the straw not significantly better than plastic from a recycling point of view.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Recycling paper is a waste anyway, absolutely no point. Takes far too much energy, chemicals, and more energy to do it. Easier to engage in sustainable forestry then anything else. Besides, the old paper straws were coated in wax and were fairly durable. I'm guessing metal straws will make a comeback fairly quickly, for anyone wanting to get in on the ground floor.
Om, nomnomnom...
I think it definitely needs to be start with a general plastic straw ban. Then you can have exceptions.
If you need a straw for accessible reasons, then you can request one. Heck, I know this is unpopular to say, but maybe if you really need a straw to drink for health reasons...maybe you carry a straw with you. That doesn't seem unreasonable in terms of personal responsibility. It's no different than any other health condition that requires you as a person to do something. Maybe you need to carry an Epi-Pen. Maybe you need a hearing aid. Maybe you need a wheel-chair.
If you plan to drink it slowly or on a very long road trip, then you can request one.
But for the 99.5% of people who use plastic straws over their 20 minute meal, a paper straw is fine.
I'm not an activist about almost anything (privacy, I'm looking at you!) but this is a thing I can get behind. I've been on dives and collected trash. I do a dive every year specifically to collect trash. The ocean is a pretty amazing place and the amount of litter in certain places is depressing (not hyperbole). I picked up a variety pack of silicone and metal straws and we keep those in the car. I get weird looks and have to explain it a couple times that I don't want a straw but it's not really a big deal. If I'm seated at a place, I use my mouth hole.
Paper is great and biodegrades. Washing is simple too though. It's not like anyone proposing taking something away without an alternative (like bags). We can do a pretty good job with recycling paper products too, so we don't even have to slash a bunch of forests to get there. All in all, this should be a non story.
Back in my day we used Papyrus, and WE Liked It!
You have no idea how hard it is to suck an Asp through a Papyrus Straw!
Where I live, it seems everyone has one of those 30oz RTIC / Yeti / Ozark cups within 6 inches of them at all times with a hard plastic self-retaining straw. Many gas stations give you a small discount for filling one of those rather than using one of their cup and straw combos. Fast food places should follow suit.
When I was a young whippersnapper, we would drink drinks by pressing the rim of the glass to our lips and tipping it up at an angle calculated to bring the liquid just in contact with the aforementioned lips, between which we would then slurp the aforementioned liquid.
I know it sounds crazy, but it's true.
// This is not a sig.
Smart idea -- people eating in generally don't need the straws unless they're kids or have some sort of disability. Why give plastic things to people who don't want them?
In theory, yes... but biodegradable wax coatings on straws can affect the taste of whatever you are drinking, giving it a slight bitter flavour. The types of coatings that are more inert tend to be less environmentally friendly.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Just eat them! No trash
Starbucks has lids that don't need a straw http://www.starbucksmelody.com...
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Hope the new ones can be popped like the old ones.
In theory, yes... but biodegradable wax coatings on straws can affect the taste of whatever you are drinking, giving it a slight bitter flavour. The types of coatings that are more inert tend to be less environmentally friendly.
The paper cups that the straw goes in to are already coated in wax.
Aren't the paper cups impregnated in wax? They certainly were in the not-too-distant past. It's been a while since I drank a sugary beverage from the waxy cups, but I don't remember any kind of off-flavour.
Wouldn't you think someone pretty small in choosing more long-lived pollution over a "slight bitter flavour"? I would.
We do have an incinerator plant where I live, so I don't think straws are not much of a problem for us.
Yes... stuff that's not actually that environmentally friendly. It can be recycled, but requires specialized facilities to do so. It cannot be composted, which is the ideal.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Or... the poor can just use a reusable cup. Reusable cups can be had for a buck or two. Also, being poor doesn't give you unlimited license to pollute.
Paper straws are horrible after they get wet.
I get "plastic" cups that are really made out of some kind of corn fiber. They work great even after several refills. Why can't straws be made of the same material?
Agreed. For such an easy-to-replace item, plastic straws make up a surprising amount of the plastic that becomes pollution. There are already plenty of solutions possible: waxed paper, biodegradable plastics, etc. One problem with a biodegradable plastic bottle is that it might biodegrade before you really want it to - but a biodegradable straw does not have this problem. It won't be needed for more than a few hours from the time it is deployed. Straws are a really easy place to start with an impact that is disproportionately large for the effort that is put into making the change.
I'm pretty sure I have won, "(Score:5, Funny)."
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I use a titanium straw, use a cotton tipped applicator to clean it. Amazon has many metal straws for sale.
One problem with straws is that they are so small that they are easier to miss when picking up trash, and small enough that even conscientious people seldom think twice about them - yet they make up a surprising amount of plastic pollution as a whole. Three or four percent, by some surveys.
More notably, they are an easy place to start. I'm particularly interested in straws creating a market for biodegradable plastic. Unlike some other products, straws will not have a serious problem from possibly degrading too soon. They would seldom need to last more than a few hours, and the biodegradable plastics that have been developed last at least a month. But biodegradable plastics need a market before they can be scaled up and perfected. Plastic straws could be that market.
Naturally, plastic lids for cups are another appealing target. They, too, seldom need to last for more than a few hours from deployment. They only need to last longer than the paper cups.
Clearly, that post must have been the last straw for you.
The old McDonalds straws were thick and durable. I also remember cleaning and saving them.
So far, I haven't seen what the alternatives being considered actually are. McDonalds seems to be relying on 'straw on request' rather than replacing the plastic straw with something else. How about straw straws?
to keep tearing the paper straw about a half inch at a time.... drink fast.
You're welcome.
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
MacDonalds: Hey! We've found a replacement for our plastic straws! they're just as good as the plastic straws and biodegradable.
Reality: new straw is crappy, doesn't work well, and stops functioning after ten minutes.
Moral: never trust any product being sold on it's moral value. It doesn't have to hold up in quality, it just has to make people think they're saving the planet/eliminating hunger/ bettering humanity.
This is gonna be bad for the Boba shops
Have a Day!
The poor in my neighborhood are the PRIME users of bottled/ filtered/ water dispensed out of water business vending machines.
I see lines of them waiting to fill their sparkletts bottles.
They get the same city water I do, a few blocks away, in similarly aged buildings.
Why is that? I eventually decided it was because being poor sucked, and that splurge on bottled water made them feel good and proactive. Like getting a sugary water drink probably does.
You didn't refute him. They will eventually degrade. he just didn't state a time period.
Do not put your mouth on that "straw" in the blindfold test in the store room.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
stupid culture
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
He didn't lie, drinking straws will degrade in sunlight. He dissembled, because they still take long enough to degrade to cause harm. They don't just disintegrate into harmless butterfly farts, they turn into smaller pieces of plastic which are more easily ingested by animals so they can work their way up the food chain.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I just don't get why coffee comes with a sipping lid, and soft drinks always come with a straw. Maybe the first step is to ditch the straw and just go for a sipping lid for soft drinks.
Now I understand that when driving, the straw and lid works quite well against spilling, but seriously, people like old women, who can't leave the house with their tiny bottle of water, and yet, still must have a straw in it as well. It's like as if they'll die of thirst if they don't get their teaspoon of water that instant.
Just tax the crap out of it and make these suckers pay!
While its easy enough to say "oh we could live without straws" There's those with physical disabilities who need them in order to drink. So they kinda can't live without it. A non-plastic straw is LONG overdue to be made ubiquitous.
Causes cancer. Especially if everyone loves them.
This can be a source of entertainment. When a woman comes to the counter and asks for a boy toy.
we're in agreement on plastic degradation. The point is that he was saying articles ignore that plastic will degrade. My point is that even this article doesn't ignore that.
Just another second banana