I sometimes wonder if this "plastic straw" wasn't another of 4Chan's trolling attempts... Like, sure, reduce plastic straw usage, but most bars just replaced them with paper straws. That is obviously a stupidly wrong solution, the vast majority of the population can easily manage without straws entirely, so really it just shows that people don't actually care about the environment, it's all just virtue signalling...
If people are really getting this upset over their straws being replaced we don't stand a chance at the level of consumption change needed to combat climate change
Because they don't work for people with disabilities. They dissolve, they're more easily bent, they're less resistant to accidental biting. They disintegrate even faster with hot beverages.
I've heard this argument before, and please forgive me if this is insensitive. Are people with disabilities eased by non-paper straws not able to supply their own? Perhaps steel ones that can be reused many times? I appreciate that allowances for disabilities must be made, but I can also understand that general popular use of plastic straws is harmful to the environment.
What does that have to do with the question? Using paper straws would address the type of problem you mentioned, as they're (too) quickly bio-degradable. They may not be the right direction to go in (why do we use so many straws in the first place?), but they do solve that type of impact to marine animals.
Make them buy trees that have been grown just for paper(they definitely exist), no one's going to cut down old growth for paper... seriously that's prime high margin furniture material.
Last night the waiter topped off my iced tea three times and I continued to use the same plastic straw, whereas a single paper straw would not have lasted. It's a wetted time and solubility problem. Paper is water soluble--plastic is not.
I've used bad paper straws that didn't last through a single glass but any I've used in the last year has been much more robust. A better question than paper or plastic would be to ask why your iced tea needed a straw at all.
