We're going back to plastic straws. I think it's OK. What happened to the ban on plastic straws? Remember when plastic straws became like the public enemy number one? It seemed like banning them would be such an easy thing. Plastic straws hurt turtles. Turtles are good. We want to keep turtles around. So let's ban plastic straws. But it became a lot more complicated than that.
And on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, we're going to be talking about what went wrong with the plastic ban and how can we do better in the future to protect the ocean. Let's start the show. Hey, everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
I'm your host, Andrew Lue, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action.
And on today's episode, we're going to be talking about the ban of the ban on plastic straws, which you saw in the video where President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning the ban on plastic straws that essentially overturn the former president Biden's executive action on let's ban plastic straws from any federal government facility. This is not a huge ban. This is one of the things where it's like, hey, you know what?
It's just in government facilities, which obviously is still a lot of usage. But we're talking about the fight against plastic pollution and against plastic straws. We're not talking about a huge win for the plastic straw industry, but it's also not good for the banning of plastic straws. And really the discussion about the whole plastic straw and marine plastics debate and reducing plastic pollution so that it doesn't end up in the ocean. That's what it's all been about.
But before we get into all that, I want to just take it back a little bit and I want to talk about how plastic straws became sort of the symbol of plastic straws. And I want to talk about how plastic straws became sort of the symbol of plastic pollution and then also not the symbol of plastic pollution. Because if you ever realize when I saw the video of Donald Trump signing that executive order, I wasn't surprised. I have to admit, I wasn't surprised at all.
This was something that we knew was incoming. He was going to do little actions like this. That's fine. But it was the response by a lot of the people that are out of the government and some of them are celebrities or personalities, influencers, content creators, whatever you have. People who have a platform really talking about, thank God.
Like I think for a lot of people, even though this was just banning the ban on plastic pollution or plastic straws in government facilities, this was more of a symbol for a lot of people who are like, I just like plastic straws. I don't like paper straws. That was the big argument against use like having to ban plastic. Trust people didn't like the fact that when you banned it and the second is we are forced to use an alternative that people just didn't like.
You've probably heard the argument before. Paper straws, although they're getting better in quality, they would fall apart in a liquid, right? That's paper falls apart in liquid and a lot of the early paper straws did that. Now, I don't find a big difference when I use a paper straw, but a lot of people do and a lot of people hate it. That's the argument that you see over and over, including the argument that Donald Trump used when he signed that executive order.
But let's take it back to how this all started back a while ago, about a decade ago, there was a viral video that showed in all of Ridley turtle. Having the plastic straw taken out of its nose. It was stuck in his nose with the scientists that were out doing research. Dr. Nathan Robinson was a friend of the podcast as well as Christine Figoner, who's also a friend of the podcast, been on the podcast talking about this viral video a number of times on this podcast.
And it was essentially they were out doing sea turtle research. They came across this sea turtle that looked like it was in trouble. They pulled it onto the boat. They were going to do a workup to make sure that one, it was OK. And with two, they could do their research and they noticed that there was something protruding from its nose. The video, as you probably already know, showed a grueling match of trying to pull that object out of the sea turtle.
And when they pulled it out, they realized a plastic straw just sort of unfolded. This has never been seen before. Researchers and sea turtle biologists had never really thought of plastic straws being stuck in the nose. But it went viral and it really launched a campaign on plastic straws. People started their organizations on banning plastic straws. It was just about plastic straws. Company started selling alternatives to plastic straws.
A lot of them were metal that you could reuse and it was a great option. You could buy for like a buck 50 or whatever that might be and you can read them over and over and over again. It took off in a little bit. Everybody was banning plastic straws. Cities were banning plastic straws in the US and Canada. Countries were banning plastic straws. This all happened in a very short period of time. There's some pushback as you might expect because there are some people who needed plastic straws.
People with disabilities couldn't use paper straws. They had to use plastic straws and there were exceptions made for people with disabilities that had to use plastic straws. And here comes the problem after all of that. People were just tired of having to be told what they can and cannot have. People like plastic straws. They were used to plastic straws and to be honest, a lot of them just never thought of not using plastic straws.
Let's be honest when you're sitting in a restaurant when you get served a drink, the plastic straw is in there, right? Or a straw is in there and it's automatic. At one point you had to ask not to have a straw and some people, some waiters would push back others wouldn't. They said, yeah, no problem. Whatever you'd like. It was really up to the consumer person in the restaurant to say, yeah, whether I want plastic straws or not.
I remember a couple times I would forget to ask not to have plastic straws and then they would bring it. Now they put paper straws in it or they'll give you a straw that's in a wrapper and they'll put it beside you so you can use it if you want or you don't have to use it. No big deal, right?
So the policy response was pretty good when you saw a lot of these plastic straws being banned, especially initially we saw Starbucks, McDonald's, a lot of places in like Seattle, San Francisco started to ban or phase out plastic straws in general. So governments passed the regulations to restrict the use and companies were following that, including some companies would come to alternatives to even using straws at all. Now, were they the best alternatives? I don't know.
Starbucks said we're not going to have plastic straws anymore, but we are going to put a cap on it and it's going to be plastic, which was probably worse than the plastic straw. And I think this is where we started to see an unraveling of the campaign. There was so much focus on plastic straws.
So many organizations were just focused on plastic straws, banning plastic straws, not using plastic straws that they really missed out on the bigger problem and using this as what I call a gateway plastic to our usage of plastic in general. This was an opportunity to make people more aware of how much single use plastic, which is what plastic straws are, are in our lives. And we just never took advantage as an ocean conservation community.
There were some organizations that were kept professing like this is more than just about a plastic straw. Plastic straws only make up 0.03% of marine debris and marine plastics that are in the ocean. So it doesn't really make sense to just focus on a plastic straw. And a lot of people who are against the bans on plastic straws say, why do we care about plastic straws? We shouldn't have to worry about that. We shouldn't be talking about plastic straws.
We should be talking about other things, plastic packaging, plastic fishing gear nets. These are the things that we should be talking about and not just plastic straws. Why are we focused so much on the individual who uses plastic straws and making them feel bad for using plastic straws when there's this whole other avenue to go ahead and say, hey, you know what? Yeah, we have a problem with plastic straws, but there's a bigger problem in single use plastics.
And this is an opportunity to educate the people on what we can do and provide alternatives. Now, I wanted to really dive in to look at how we can actually do these campaigns better because here's the problem. The alternatives weren't great, right? Paper straws got soggy. Reusable straws required extra effort. Like you had to bring it around. Some people would bring around their purse, but not many people or not many people would keep a straw in their pockets.
Some of these reusable mugs and like the Yetis and stuff like that or other like Stanley's and stuff, they actually have plastics or metal straws in their or reusable plastic in their cups already. So people could use that, but not everybody was going to just take a single or a package of plastic straws and bring it around whenever they need it. We don't need plastic straws that much unless you need it to drink if you have some sort of disability or you need it as an exception, right?
There's always exceptions to the rule, but for the most of us, we just didn't need straws all the time. It was just something that was convenient. Let's be honest. You're in a restaurant or you're at a coffee shop. You don't really need a straw to drink your drink. You can just drink it out of the cup. The straw has just become part of life. It's become part of our culture, right? Also another alternative like biodegradable plastic still didn't degrade properly in the ocean.
And so they were still a problem in the ocean. So in many of the places alternative materials were either expensive or unavailable and they were just inconvenient for a lot of people. So the band was partially effective but divisive and it limited the impact and it was used as a political tool, right? You saw Donald Trump and the Republicans on the campaign talking about plastic straws.
And every time you hear, oh, and the plastic straws everybody's like, oh my gosh, don't talk to me about the plastic straws. It was not fun, right? And so what I wanted to do is really look at how this campaign really lost it and how behavior change because that's what we're looking at here. When we're talking about people changing their ways, it's a behavior change and that's difficult to do for us humans. We don't like to change our behavior.
Like think about going on a diet when I go on a diet or I start saying, you know what? I got to eat cleaner. It's really hard not to have a sweet that I really want because I'm like, I should be able to have a sweet and I should be fine. But then I just continue to have sweets and sweets and sweets and sweets and I can't get away from it. And then I end up gaining weight and I don't want to do that. So I have to change my behavior and that takes a while and that is hard.
And that's one of the hardest parts about eating properly after you're not eating clean as one would say. So there's a lot of things that we need to know about behavior change. So here's some of the things that we can talk about behavior changes. It's the actual psychological reactants. So like people resist being told what to do. So if you say, hey, we're going to ban plastic straws, be like, why? Like what's the point?
It doesn't really do doesn't consist of all the marine plastics that are in the ocean. It's point zero three percent. Why is this a problem? Why is it me that's having one plastic straw and why am I being isolated and told I'm not doing something right? So we're just going to ban it altogether. People don't like that, right? Restaurants serves drinks without straws unless requested. So that's one way of doing it.
So restaurants could just not serve it and then people like I want my plastic straw and then they have to give it to them. Nobody wants to have that kind of conflict. Then there's a status quo by so people stick to what's familiar. So like I said plastic straws have been in our culture for a long time here in North America anyway, and we see it all over the world and sometimes people think it's cleaner.
Some people don't want to drink out of the drink because it's been reused by a lot of people even though dishwashers are crazy. When you think about how much they clean and how hot they get but regardless people just don't like to get out of that norm, right? That what's familiar. So to ensure that sustainable alternatives are just as convenient or better. We have to like invest in better biodegradable materials instead of just banning plastic. So people want straws now.
It's a matter of coming up with a better product that makes sure that people are like, okay, you know what? I actually like this a lot better and this is just like the social norms. People just follow the crowd. We all know this. We have cults that follow each other. We have people that follow each other. We always talk about how there's a hockey cult and there's a football cult and there's a basketball cult and all this thing.
It's like a cult following movies want cult followings because people will follow what people suggest. And so if people are either for or against something you're going to be influenced by your peers who are for or against something right and so showing that most people are making the switch to reuse to sustainable alternatives might be better. So campaigns that highlight businesses or cities that are going plastic-free could be a good alternative like you know what?
I like the fact that somebody is going out sustainable and I know how expensive. I know how hard it is. So I'm going to support that business more because that's my values. Not everybody's going to do that, but it shows a little more of a positive impact instead of a negative. We're going to take it away. So then there's just more licensing. I recycle so I can use a plastic straw. So there's a fact is like I do something sustainable. So that offsets whatever. I don't do that sustainable.
I think that's what a lot of people feel. Then there's also like political identity. So it's avoid polarization. So keep the messaging inclusive and nonpartisan. That's really difficult thing to do these days. Isn't it? Even on this episode, I have a lot of problems. I just did an episode on what was the cuts to know and EPA in the comments. I got man and even responding to the comments. I had to learn a lesson or two. Let's just be honest.
And so having the focus on shared values of values people like nature people like being outdoors a lot of people like that. So to be able to focus on protecting the outdoors protecting what you see enjoying that pristine this and that quietness and that just health of the environment because it's healthy to the people there are people on both sides the aisle or all sides the aisle that love nature. And that's what we need to really focus on is those shared values.
So there are five things that in the future that we can do that will make a more effective campaign. So let's focus on bigger wins. So instead of just straws target high impact pollution sources. So plastic bags fishing gear microplastics. These will all be better. So policy efforts should tackle corporate plastic waste not just consumer behaviors. Let's start getting at the bigger impact here bigger means better. So not just individual waste talk about bigger impacts.
Let's be honest when we talk about businesses even businesses here in Burlington, Ontario a lot of the like where the office where everybody's going back to office all the offices. They don't necessarily have recycling programs. It's all a sham. So let's talk about reducing the waste at corporate levels and at businesses and we can start doing a lot better providing better alternatives.
So invest in better materials like we talked about biodegradable options that truly break down in the marine environment and not in your mouth. That's really what comes down to so paper straws need to get stronger, which I do believe again stronger. I just went to the movies the other day had a paper straw and it actually lasted the entire movie. No problem. So I don't know what people are talking about. Maybe it's like the old type of materials, but this is a little better.
But you have to invest in better alternatives so that people are like, yeah, I can see this. This is not that big of a deal, right? Especially when we talk about the resistance to behavior change. So shift bands to smart policies. So use opt-out strategies like we talked about restaurants being like, you know, what we're not going to serve it unless you ask for it, right? Or we're going to serve different ones until like we're not forcing people to take it. So implement incentive.
So rather than punishments give discounts for bringing a reusable cup. That's not a bad idea. So make it a positive experience and then for engage the public with positive messaging. So instead of don't use plastic straws say join millions of ocean protectors reducing plastic waste or small changes create a cleaner ocean. The last thing is use local leaders and communities. So instead of top-down government bands, let businesses influencers and communities lead the change.
These are the different things that we can do from a behavior change perspective that will help future campaigns from working. Let's not just focus on the little things. Let's focus on bigger impact. Get people to like get the owners off the individual and more on a community level and get people behind the campaign instead of just talking about it against it. And let's not force things on people. Let's allow them to choose people like choice. Let's force them.
So that's sort of the end of this episode. I want to just kind of let people know like I am for banning plastic. I am for this type of work, but maybe this is not the right way of doing this type of campaign. We've seen this done all over the US all over Canada. And although it makes it easier to take out single-use plastics altogether. And I do agree with some of these bands. Maybe give people the choice.
Maybe allow business to lead with the choice and focus on incentives rather than taking away and maybe giving a little discount. It's a little hard to live out here, right? A little hard to live. Some discounts would really help from businesses and even government incentives. So that's the episode for today. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. What you thought went wrong with the plastic band and how you think it could do better.
I don't care if you're Republican, if you're Democrat, if you're liberal conservative, I would love to hear what you think. Is it even worth it at all? So leave a comment down below on the YouTube channel or on Spotify. And if you want to get a hold of me, you can do so on Instagram at how to protect the ocean. That's how to protect the ocean. And also don't forget to subscribe and hit that notification bell here on YouTube to be able to get access to our Monday Wednesday and Friday shows.
And there's going to be even some more episodes coming soon. So don't miss out. So subscribe, hit that notification bell. And thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.