Starbucks won raves from environmentalists for its ban on straws. But
while a strawless Starbucks won't do anything to help the environment,
it will discriminate against the disabled. Virtue signaling can be a
tricky business.
Under pressure from environmentalists, the coffee giant says that it
will replace plastic straws with sippy-cup style lids at all of its
stores by 2020. The company isn't the first to do so, although it is the
biggest. Hilton and Marriott hotels said they're removing plastic
straws at many of their hotels. American Airlines said it will get rid
of plastic straws starting this November. Various cities have or plan to
impose bans.
...Whatever the number, straw bans in the U.S. will have virtually no
impact on the world's plastic pollution problem. Not only do straws
represent a tiny portion of plastic waste that ends up in the ocean, but
the U.S. itself accounts for less than 1% of the marine plastic in the world's oceans, according to a 2015 study published in the journal Science. Europe's coastal countries, by contrast, account for almost 3%.
Just five countries — China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Sri Lanka — are responsible for more than half of the plastic entering the ocean each year.
That's because, unlike those other countries, the U.S. has better waste
management systems in place — which keeps most of our trash in landfills
or recycling centers, and out of the oceans. The Science study notes
that just 2% of the waste in the U.S. is "mismanaged," compared with 76%
in China, 90% in North Korea, 88% in Vietnam, and 87% in India.
...What's more, Starbucks will likely end up using more plastic after the ban than before.
According to Reason magazine's Christian Britschgi,
the replacement lid Starbucks is likely to use contains up to 15% more
plastic by weight than the current lid-and-straw combo. Starbucks, he
reports, did not address, nor did it dispute, that its transition to
strawless lids would increase its overall plastic consumption.
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