Trump’s Assault on Paper Straws Is Largely Symbolic — However the Plastics Trade Is Celebrating

By Joseph Winters, Grist

“This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here.”

President Donald Trump signed an govt order final week to finish the federal procurement of paper straws.

The order, which claims that paper straws are “nonfunctional” and says it desires to finish the “forced use” of them, instantly undoes a part of a Biden-era initiative to get rid of single-use plastics, together with straws, in all authorities operations by 2035. Extra broadly, Trump instructed White Home employees and “relevant agencies” to challenge a “national strategy to end the use of paper straws” inside 45 days. The technique would purpose to get rid of all govt department insurance policies “designed to disfavor plastic straws” and handle the federal authorities’s contracts with states and and different entities “that ban or penalize plastic straw purchase or use.”

“We’re going back to plastic straws,” Trump stated throughout a signing ceremony within the Oval Workplace. His employees secretary, Will Scharf, stated that insurance policies encouraging the usage of paper straws had price the federal government and personal trade “an absolute ton of money, and left consumers all over the country wildly dissatisfied with their straws.” (In accordance with one trade govt, paper straws every price a penny extra to make than their plastic counterparts.)

Plastic straws have turn out to be a world emblem of the harms of plastic air pollution, and Trump’s order is the most recent salvo in a tradition warfare that pits take care of the setting in opposition to values like masculinity and freedom. By way of truly curbing or exacerbating plastic air pollution, any coverage that solely targets straws is generally symbolic: Of the 8 million tons of plastic waste that reaches the world’s oceans yearly, straws make up simply 0.025 p.c, based on Nationwide Geographic.

What’s extra, it’s unclear how a lot of the US’ plastic straw use is pushed by federal procurement, given the decentralized nature of this buying. The U.S. is the world’s largest purchaser of products and providers, however the bulk of its spending within the former class is on medication, metals, medical tools, and software program. It’s possible that non-public firms, not authorities businesses, purchase a lot of the a whole bunch of tens of millions of plastic straws estimated for use nationwide every day. Some firms — Alaska Airways and Starbucks, for instance — have way back pledged to maneuver towards strawless or compostable straw choices amid rising considerations over plastic’s impacts on wildlife and ecological well being.

Plastic straws, like different plastic merchandise, are made virtually completely from fossil fuels. They can’t be recycled on account of their small dimension and lightweight weight. After they aren’t despatched to landfills or incinerators, they fester within the setting as litter, breaking into microplastics that appeal to pathogens, launch chemical compounds, and clog up animals’ digestive programs.

The second a part of Trump’s govt order, calling for a “national strategy to end the use of paper straws,” appears to take purpose on the suite of native and regional restrictions on single-use plastic straws which have handed lately, together with in Seattle, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York Metropolis. It’s unclear, nonetheless, whether or not and the way the technique would have an effect on these insurance policies. In an excessive situation, the Trump administration may attempt to use unrelated contracts, comparable to these associated to funding for infrastructure initiatives, as leverage to get cities and states to drop their plastic straw restrictions.

The manager order is “open for interpretation and also a cause for concern,” stated Anja Brandon, director of plastics coverage for the nonprofit Ocean Conservancy. “States are the testing ground for a lot of really good policies [on plastics], and we want to make sure that the states that have been taking action remain protected.”

The White Home didn’t reply to Grist’s request for remark.

The motion in opposition to plastic straws started round 2011, when a 9-year-old from Vermont estimated — with enter from straw producers — that U.S. customers throw away half a billion straws every day. The discovering was revealed by an advocacy group known as Eco-Cycle and extensively lined within the media. (Market analysis corporations would later revise the determine downward, to someplace between 170 million and 390 million straws day by day.)

Later, in 2015, a video of a marine biologist extracting a plastic straw out of a turtle’s nostril helped turbochange the anti-straw motion, catalyzing plastic straw bans all over the world, together with in Queensland, Australia; Taiwan; and Tanzania. Few, if any, jurisdictions mandated the usage of a specific different. Some companies in affected areas started providing paper straws, whereas others turned to straws constructed from sugarcane or wheat. Others opted for bioplastics constructed from corn, agave, or different nonpetroleum supplies.

There’s proof that the general public outcry and bans have had an impact: One market analysis agency discovered that plastic straws misplaced market share between 2017 and 2022, going from practically one hundred pc of U.S. demand for straws to roughly 75 p.c.

Environmental advocates say the extraordinary public deal with straws largely misses the purpose. Brandon stated plastic straws are “just the tip of the iceberg” relating to the bigger-picture downside of plastic air pollution, and their visibility as litter ought to spotlight the necessity to transfer away from all forms of single-use merchandise, comparable to luggage, plates, takeout containers, and cutlery. Advocates say these merchandise can both be eradicated altogether or changed with reusables constructed from glass, metallic, material, wooden, or different supplies.

That’s to not downplay the real-world impacts of eliminating plastic straws. Brandon stated straws are some of the generally collected single-use plastic gadgets at Ocean Conservancy seaside cleanups. In 2023, volunteers related to the group collected 416,000 plastic straws from seashores and waterways, which is about the identical because the variety of plastic cups and plates, and barely smaller than the variety of plastic grocery luggage. Plastic straw bans may, in idea, chip away on the quantity of plastic that winds up on seashores.

Banning particular person single-use gadgets like straws “has an immediate positive benefit for the environment, and is an opportunity for education and conversation about the broader plastic pollution crisis that we are in,” Brandon stated.

Whereas it’s unclear whether or not Trump will attempt to roll again restrictions on different forms of single-use plastic, his administration has to date been extraordinarily supportive of fossil gas pursuits, which donated greater than $75 million to his 2024 presidential marketing campaign and stand to profit from uninhibited plastic manufacturing. Even earlier than Election Day, the Trump marketing campaign had steered it will not take part in or attempt to water down United Nations negotiations for a worldwide plastics treaty. Now, Trade leaders try to construct momentum across the phrase “back to plastic,” which the president utilized in a social media submit earlier this month.

“Straws are just the beginning,” stated Plastics Trade Affiliation CEO Matt Seaholm, in a press release. A number of days later, he wrote within the Each day Wire that bans on single-use plastic had been “emotional policies” promoted by “extremist groups”: “Now is the time to hit reset on the misguided policies of the past few years, heed the words of the president, and go ‘back to plastic!’”

Polls present that the general public doesn’t assist insurance policies to extend plastic use. In accordance with one survey commissioned by the nonprofit Oceana, which advocates for decreasing single-use plastics use as a method of defending marine environments, 82 p.c of U.S. voters particularly assist a discount within the quantity of single-use plastic utilized by states and within the federal authorities, and 80 p.c need firms to scale back the single-use packaging they provide.

“A push to have more plastic in the U.S. is not what voters are asking for,” stated Christy Leavitt, Oceana’s plastics marketing campaign director. “What the federal government needs to do … is pass policies to reduce the production and use of single-use plastics.”

This text initially appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/politics/trumps-executive-order-paper-straw-ban-plastic/.

Grist is a nonprofit, impartial media group devoted to telling tales of local weather options and a simply future. Study extra at Grist.org

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This Story Was Initially Revealed by Grist.

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The submit Trump’s Assault on Paper Straws Is Largely Symbolic — However the Plastics Trade Is Celebrating appeared first on The Good Males Undertaking.

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