Sports stadiums are stepping up to the plate in the fight against water pollution. This week on Parts per Billion, the effort to take plastic straws out of the ballgame. Hello there, and welcome back to Parts per Billion, the policy podcast from Bloomberg Environment. As always, I'm your host, David Schultz. What's better than going to a ballgame and getting a big, ice cold beverage? And what goes better with a beverage than a what you thought I was gonna say, a hot dog? No, a straw? Well, I'll
use straw. Fans out there, brace yourselves because Bloomberg Environment Sam McQuillan is reporting that many sporting venues are actually phasing out straws or banning them all together in the name of cutting down on pollution. And Sam actually joins us in the studio now to explain what's going on here. Hello Sam, Hello David. How's it going pretty good? But first off, before we get into sports stadiums in particular, why are people trying to get rid of plastic straws
in the first place? Like, I've heard a lot about this, and you know it's almost going viral. People banning straws. What's wrong? With straws. Well, that's a great question, David. It's really become a sweeping movement, not just in the US but globally. So about eight million tons of plastic
enter the ocean every year. And there was a contested statistic a couple of years ago by a boy in Vermont that he did a studium that said five hundred million straws enter the water a day, and a lot of people actually kind of ran with that statistic and it was kind of passed off as a fact. So that kind of created a lot of an alarming thing around the plastic straw movement and really helped it take off.
There's also a video I don't know if you've seen it, but of a turtle with a plastic straw up its nose, which really got people up in arms. And it's just an easy thing to do to reduce plastic pollution. But it sounds like this is not just something that Starbucks is doing or as sort of other you know businesses. This is big. You know, sports stadiums are taking the lead and getting rid of straws, and I understand there's
some pretty big star power behind it, especially in Seattle. Yeah, basically the whole movement can pretty much be tracked down to Seattle. If you've ever watched Entourage, the guy who plays Vincent Chase, who's the main character, Adrian Greenier. I hope I'm saying his name right, my pete. It's either it's either that or it's Gregnern maybe the French world sounding version. Well we'll go, we'll stradle the line, we'll
say it could be one or the other. But yeah, he co founded an organization called Lonely Whale, which their big mission is to have a strawless ocean, and they've worked with they've kind of used his star power to work with businesses and restaurants in Seattle to get rid of plastic straws. And they've actually teamed up with the Seahawks. And Russell Wilson has been a big proponent of the
Ditch the straw movement. Russell for those who aren't sports fans out there, Russell Wilson's star quarterback, super Bowl winning quarterback, Russell Wilson. And it's not just sports stadiums either, it's also concert venues. Can you tell me a little bit about that and the connection from the straw band to the soft rocker Jack Johnson. What's going on here? Jack
Johnson was very against plastic straws for whatever reason. I guess he's an environmentalist and Live Nation kind of was inspired by him just to get rid of their own plastic straws. So they went through this process where they kind of just ditched the straw and now forty five of their venues across the United States they no longer
will be issuing plastic straws. Yeah, and you spoke with Live Nation's head of sustainability, Lucy August Perna, and she talked about the pilot project that they started in response to Jack Johnson's demands. So we did it at his shows, at every show of his last year. With success, we were able to remove the plastic straws and really gauge the response from the fans. And this is what showed
us that it could work. That was Lucy August Purna, the head of sustainability with the concert business megabusiness Live Nation. So this is kind of a weird story. We have a turtle with the straw up. It's knows. We have the guy from Entourage, Russell Wilson, Jack Johnson. What other stadiums are banning straws. Is this just in Seattle? Is this just a you know, Jack Johnson, Russell Wilson thing, or are there other places that are also banning this. Yeah,
it's quite a motley crew. You could add Tom Brady to that list as well. He recently came out with his own video condemning plastic straws. It's actually pretty funny, but yeah, the Yankees, the Barners, the White Sox, the Giants, Oracle Arena, the Warriors, they're all ditching the plastic straw and there's a lot of other stars are kind of in the background and organizations are trying to get them
to come out as well. So one thing I thought was really interesting from your story that you did on this recently is that it sounds like they're some stadiums are getting rid of plastic straws mostly but not all the way that they still have some in case people need them. Can you talk about, you know, how some places are keeping a few straws on hand just in case.
One of the problems it has faced is people with disabilities sometimes they can't sip a drink without a straw, so stadiums want to make sure that they have straws for those who need them. A lot of places are moving to paper straws for those who need them, or only reserving plastic straws for those who need them and not just handing them out with a drink. So if you request one, you could probably still get one, but
it's still cutting back a lot of that plastic being used. Yeah, And Lucy august Pirna from Live Nation talked about this that her company was a little worried that they would anger some of their fans and their customers, but it sounds like it turned out okay for them. It was mostly the hurdle of getting over some of the old habits and you know, fear that there was going to be backlashed, and I think the pilot helped us overcome that.
And you know, we still have a straw to provide if a fan asked for it, it just happens to be paper. So yeah, it really has been as far as you know big sustainability moves, this is one of the simpler ones to do. So Sam, let's take a step back and sort of consider what's going on here that's driving this movement. You know, I don't get the sense that sports franchises really want to get involved in sort of a political issue very much. We've all seen
what happened with the NFL and the anthem protests. They're sort of desperately trying to get politics out of the game there. But it seems like here they're embracing this, you know, environmental issue. So what's going on here? Why are they these franchises getting involved. That's a great point, David, about the controversy of the anthem protest. This is so not controversial compared to the anthem protest. No one is really up in arms about people getting rid of plastic straws.
There's not the big straw lobby. Yeah, well they if there is one, they don't have a presence in sports at the moment. Yeah. Basically, it's been a really easy issue to do to stop giving out out plastic straws. You simply stop giving them out. So it's not like they need to go through all these checks and balances and a rigorous process. It's easy to do. It doesn't anger anybody. And if sports teams can be out here saying, hey, look at look, we're leading the front on this issue
and it's not even a controversial issue. It's it's so much. It's like a perfect match made in heaven for them. I guess you could say this is sort of a layup, not at three points, Yes, you could say that. Well, that was Sam McQuillan talking about Straws. For more of his reporting, visit our website at News dot Bloomberg, Environment dot com. That's news dot Bloomberg, environment dot com. Today's episode of Parks Pavilion was produced by myself as well
as Jessica Coombs and Rachel Daegel. Our editor is Marissa Horne, and our audio engineer is Nicholas and Zelada. The music for this episode is a message by Jizarre. It was used under a Creative Commons license. More information could be found at Better with Music dot Coms b used to speak