In the Magazine: Are We Doing that Straw Ban Thing?

Remember the straw that broke the camel’s back? This was that straw: the viral video of a plastic straw being removed from a sea turtle’s nostril. Turtle blood shocked everyone.

Here it is if you can stomach it.

The movement to oust plastic straws has spread across the country—from Miami Beach, where straws are now banned, to Malibu, where the prohibition also extends to single-use plastic utensils and stirrers. Now it’s reached Salt Lake.

Strawless in SLC—an intiative started by Laura Bellefontaine as a brainchild of the group SLC Air Protectors—has convinced more than 100 restaurants and bars to stop using plastic straws.

Want some stats? 80-90 percent of marine debris is made from plastic. In the U.S., we use 500 million straws per day—enough in a year to wrap the circumference of the earth 2.5 times, or to fill Yankee Stadium more than nine times. Plastic does not biodegrade; it photo degrades into smaller and smaller pieces, which are then ingested by marine and land animals—and even make their way into the human food chain. facebook.com/strawlessinslc

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