Plastic Straws are the WORST!

OK so maybe not THE worst, but they are pretty fricking terrible. A guy at work just came and asked me when we would be getting more plastic straw coffee stirrers and when I responded with 'never' he said he'd just bring in his own instead. As the person responsible for our office procurement I am fortunate enough to be able to have a lot if not 100% of the influence on what we as an office consume. Now that the straws are gone there are only a few knives my predecessor bought and then we will be done with any single use plastic items. (Woohoo!) But people bringing in things from outside is something that is much harder to influence.

When he left my desk, I sent him an email with a link to The Last Plastic Straw which is a project to eliminate all plastic straws from being used, ever! The damage to the ocean and the ecosystem is mind blowing and so many people remain so ignorant of it. Straws are also so hard to avoid. Every time you sit down at a bar or restaurant they bring you water with a straw in before they even introduce themselves and give you a chance to say "I don't want a straw!" To try and cut down on this as much as possible I will always try and catch our server before any water is delivered to request our table doesn't have them and I carry a stainless steel straw with me everywhere in case I even want or need one (my teeth are pretty sensitive to cold!) and have a little brush to clean it with also which is super handy!

When discussing this interaction with a friend I found out the UK is planning to BAN STRAWS!! How awesome is that! Even McDonald's is on board and has begun phasing out their plastic straws, replacing them with paper ones. The UK is even going a step further to try and eliminate all single use plastics and disposables such as wet wipes that just never break down and more often than you'd hope end up in the ocean. I'm not sure I've ever felt quite so proud of a decision from Theresa May and sincerely hope this comes into effect soon! More countries should definitely adopt this measure, did you know that the amount of straws used in the US per DAY could wrap around the Earth 2.5 times??? That's 62,253 miles. Of straws. That individually are generally only around 8inches long. Mind. Blown.