D.C. Educates Retailers About Plastic Straw Ban
The nation’s capital will enforce its prohibition on plastic straws starting July 1.
Jan 30, 2019
WASHINGTON – In 1888, Marvin Chester Stone received a patent for an “artificial straw.” More than a century later, the city in which those paper straws were first manufactured, Washington D.C., has banned plastic straws, the Washington Post reports.
“It’s pretty absurd the amount of resources we put into creating plastic materials that we are using for five minutes to an hour, and then never again,” said Julie Lawson, director of Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s Office of the Clean City. “Single-use plastics are taking the same cultural place as tobacco where it’s socially unacceptable.”
While plastic straws are less than 1% of the trash in the Potomac and Anacostia rivers, their thin shape cannot pass through recycling machines. Meanwhile, the plastic industry sees a ban as not as effective as curbing straw usage in general.
“We don’t think the ban is the right approach because it ends up substituting one material for another,” Keith Christman, managing director of plastics markets for the American Chemistry Council, told the Post. “What we need to do here is reduce waste and not take a straw when you don’t need one.”
Ahead of the D.C. ban, which took effect this month, one Starbucks location simply bagged its plastic straws and tossed it in the trash. The D.C. Department of Energy and Environment told retailers to keep some plastic straws on hand for disabled customers.
Retailers and restaurants in the District are receiving a warning that if plastic straws are still in use by July, “when a grace period expires,” writes the Post, they could be fined up to $800.
In 2010, Washington, D.C., enacted a 5-cent tax on plastic bags. Three years ago, the city prohibited plastic foam food containers. More than a dozen localities have plastic straw bans, including San Francisco, Seattle and Monmouth Beach, N.J. California mandates that restaurants only give straws when customers request them, while a number of companies, such as American Airlines, Marriott and Starbucks, are working to replace plastic straws.
The Post notes that the plastics industry is pushing for reduced plastic straw use instead of a ban.
