Food24
  • Recipes
    • New recipes
    • Recipe round-ups
    • Easy weekday meals
    • Cooking with lamb
    • Delicious pork recipes
    • Braai recipes
    • Chicken recipes
    • Vegetarian recipes
    • Baking
    • Low carb recipes
    • Gluten-free recipes
    • Dairy-free recipes
    • Pasta recipes
    • South African recipes
  • News
    • Food news
  • Videos
  • Drinks
    • Non-alcoholic drinks
    • Wine
    • Beer
    • Cocktails
    • Coffee
  • Newsletters
  • More
    • Cooking guides and tips
    • Baking tips and tricks
    • Food24 taste tests
    • Eat for good
    • Win
No Result
View All Result
Food24
  • Recipes
    • New recipes
    • Recipe round-ups
    • Easy weekday meals
    • Cooking with lamb
    • Delicious pork recipes
    • Braai recipes
    • Chicken recipes
    • Vegetarian recipes
    • Baking
    • Low carb recipes
    • Gluten-free recipes
    • Dairy-free recipes
    • Pasta recipes
    • South African recipes
  • News
    • Food news
  • Videos
  • Drinks
    • Non-alcoholic drinks
    • Wine
    • Beer
    • Cocktails
    • Coffee
  • Newsletters
  • More
    • Cooking guides and tips
    • Baking tips and tricks
    • Food24 taste tests
    • Eat for good
    • Win
No Result
View All Result
Food24
No Result
View All Result

Here’s why you should be refusing to have your drinks served with a straw

Food24
Ceili McGeever by Ceili McGeever
July 12, 2017
in Food News
0
Here’s why you should be refusing to have your drinks served with a straw
0
SHARES
283
VIEWS
FacebookTwitterPinterestWhatsapp

(Images from iStock)

A child starting a campaign to protect the natural environment sounds too sweet to be true. But then again it makes perfect sense, when we think about children’s ability to slice through the rubbish and come up with a simple notion that at times is totally profound, causing adults to do a double take or leave us momentarily in a state of ponder.

A certain 9-year-old, Milo Cress, had a far reaching effect with his revolutionary idea. Why are we using straws as easily as we breathe in air? This is something many of us recyclers and waste minimalists hadn’t really thought of before, possibly because they are free and often placed into our drinks before we’ve had time to pull out our cash. But the facts and figures associated with straw consumption and waste will shock you.

Milo Cress started his campaigning on a micro level, refusing straws himself and getting those around him to do the same. Then slowly he moved towards restaurants, urging them not to freely stick straws in drinks, but rather only serve them on a customer’s request.

Cress’s Be Straw Free campaign started back in 2011 and has now spread across the globe with campaign offshoots like Straws Suck, Refuse the Straw and The Last Plastic Straw. There was a major push in this global campaign when a video of a turtle having a straw extracted from his/her nose, went viral. Following on from that a documentary on the movement has just been released this year, simply titled STRAWS.

Why the straw?

It does instinctively seem minor in comparison to other plastic items like cups or plates, but it’s the ubiquitous nature of straws that is so harmful. Think how easily they are slipped into a glass and then thrown away, and just as quickly a fresh one is put into your new drink, or all those straws attached to juice boxes, or the free straws stacked at any café or spaza shop. Their readiness, availability and turn-around-time is the issue, hence why groups are trying to overcome the careless and ultimately unnecessary usage of straws. Of course the action against straws is both a literal plight as well as a figurative one – acting as a symbol for all plastic utensils which we use without a second thought.

The statistics

Another reason why this movement has started with the straw, is the alarming statistics that prove just how damaging the thin tube of plastic really is. The US alone uses and disposes of around half a million straws a day, so it’s not surprising that the Ocean Conservancy organisation ranks straws at number 7 as the most picked up item on beach clean ups. One has to wonder then how many are floating in our oceans.

A foundation called Plastic Oceans states that one in three species of marine mammals have been found tangled in plastic, and that 90% of sea birds have plastic pieces in their stomachs. And it’s not only the physical and volumetric issues associated with plastic, but the toxins as well that affect ocean life, and humans who enjoy its waters.


What can you do?

It’s simple: refuse the straw! You will be subjecting yourself to a minuscule amount of inconvenience, but adding to a cause that is gaining serious momentum and magnitude, allowing it to have a huge impact. You can even get yourself a more durable, reusable straw or just reuse your plastic ones.

We now have packs of the @caliwoods_eco reuseable straws ???? Fact of the day: Did you know we use enough plastic straws EVERYDAY to go around the earths equator 2.5times! That’s a lot of plastic. Plastic never goes away ?? Do your bit this #plasticfreejuly and #refusethestraw ????

A post shared by Wholeheart (@wholeheartnz) on Jul 11, 2017 at 5:32pm PDT

Restaurants and bars need to get involved as well, because they are, in many cases, the source of these straws. We’ve already seen three popular Cape Town establishments getting involved, Junior, El Burro and Royale Eatery. Junior are urging customers ordering milkshakes to either go without or reuse straws at home when they order a take-out;  El Burro have flat-out said goodbye to straws entirely and Royale are reducing their serving of straws in cocktails and certain drinks.

Let’s get on board and #refusethestraw !

Save

Tags: DrinksRestaurants And Bars


Related Posts

The state of school feeding programmes in South Africa
Features

The state of school feeding programmes in South Africa

June 24, 2022
When cooking goes horribly wrong: The Food24 team shares their tips and tricks to fix common issues
Cooking Guides and Tips

When cooking goes horribly wrong: The Food24 team shares their tips and tricks to fix common issues

June 23, 2022
vanilla-cake-taste-test
Food24 taste tests

This Food24 Taste Test reveals which vanilla store-bought cake mix is the best

June 21, 2022
Next Post
Your weekend feast: 14 July 2017

Your weekend feast: 14 July 2017

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Food24 Team Loves

We tried 6 different cooking methods for lamb chops and found the best

We tried 6 different cooking methods for lamb chops and found the best

May 19, 2022
rusks

We tasted store-bought buttermilk rusks and found the best one – just in time for winter

May 18, 2022
mielie rice

Whatever happened to mielie rice?

March 18, 2022
Khayelitsha’s Finest Wines goes global

Khayelitsha’s Finest Wines goes global

March 17, 2022
banana-peel-uses

3 fruit peels you’ll love for their waste-reducing appeal

March 10, 2022

Recent favourites

  • vanilla-cake-taste-test

    This Food24 Taste Test reveals which vanilla store-bought cake mix is the best

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Should you buy an air-fryer?

    3 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Why elaichi is not your sworn enemy

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • A guide to the perfect butter chicken curry

    10 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • We tasted store-bought buttermilk rusks and found the best one – just in time for winter

    2 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0

Newsletter

Get weekly access to our best recipes, tips and tricks

Sign Up
Footer

Quick links

  • Home
  • News
  • Videos
  • Win

Collections

  • New Recipes
  • Festive
  • Baking
  • Dessert Recipes
  • Braai Recipes
  • Lunchbox
  • South African Recipes
  • Pasta Recipes

Other links

  • Advertise with Food24
  • Editorial Policy
  • How to Pitch
  • Contact us

Not in the mood to cook?

Visit eatout.co.za to find the perfect restaurant near you.

eatout.co.za

© 2020 Food24.com. All rights reserved.

  • About us
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy
  • New Media
IAB
No Result
View All Result
  • Recipes
    • New recipes
    • Recipe round-ups
    • Easy weekday meals
    • Cooking with lamb
    • Delicious pork recipes
    • Braai recipes
    • Chicken recipes
    • Vegetarian recipes
    • Baking
    • Low carb recipes
    • Gluten-free recipes
    • Dairy-free recipes
    • Pasta recipes
    • South African recipes
  • News
    • Food news
  • Videos
  • Drinks
    • Non-alcoholic drinks
    • Wine
    • Beer
    • Cocktails
    • Coffee
  • Newsletters
  • More
    • Cooking guides and tips
    • Baking tips and tricks
    • Food24 taste tests
    • Eat for good
    • Win

© 2019 Food24.com. All rights reserved.

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Fill the forms below to register

Subscribe to Newsletter

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
Close
Food24
Recipe Disclaimer

All recipe content is the responsibility of the party from whom such content originated. You agree that you use the content on Food24 at your own risk. Please read our editorial policy.
Close
Food24
Get the latest recipes delivered to your inbox weekly
Promotional Newsletter

Be the first to receive information about competitions and special offers from Food24 and it's partners.

You have successfully been subscribed!
Something went wrong. Please try again.
Make sure you have completed all required fields.
I don't want to see this again