Starbucks to Eliminate Plastic Straws • Page 3

honestly I'm on board for anything except paper. I feel like theres a lawsuit waiting to happen with glass or metal straws. Between kids, drunk, and just clumsy people an accident is inevitable

 

Yeah, I remember back in April of 2010 when my high school took our senior trip to Disney World, and one of the places we went to when we were there was the Animal Kingdom. They didn't use the normal straws, but instead the wax/paper straws because of the surrounding animals. I didn't like those types of straws at all when I used them so I've been looking at alternatives.

As for the metal/glass? Yeah, those two will have issues between glass straws potentially breaking/chipping/shattering, and like you mention... Both types of material causing people to injure themselves (or even breaking the glasses/cups they're in).

The only thing I could think of as another alternative is the plastic tubing that they use for those drinking hats/helmets, or even the same tubing used for medical purposes.

 

I appreciate the compliment, really. I think I'm not doing a good job of getting my point across- of course dangerous and inconvenient aren't the same thing. What I'm trying to say is that, I think there are different and better moves that Starbucks in particular could make. And I worry that with this move, it will become a wide-spread ban (as cities are already moving to do so) and that what was once and inconvenience will become a danger. We are all inconvenienced, but I don't think any group is asked to put up with more inconvenience than disabled people- especially when those inconveniences are things we're able to do without a second thought.

I definitely don't want to find fault in everything, but I think it's important to be critical of "good" things that can lead to bad things, or "good" things that seem hollow in the face of many other options. When I am critical of these things, it's often because I am trying to use my voice to amplify the concerns and worries of activists with smaller platforms than me. I don't have a huge platform, but I have some, so I try. I don't want to come off as negative all the time, for sure, and I definitely appreciate your point of view here as well. It's just that when one group is so often asked to put their needs on the backburner, it makes me worry that something that starts as a good intention can end badly for people who need our help.

 

I'm pretty confident that the private sector will respond to these bans by developing more higher-quality compostable/recyclable straws - because they'll then have the incentive to do so. I only really phrase it that way because most of the time when I say "the private sector will find a way..." it's followed by something cynical about how they're taking advantage of a market. But in this instance, I think it could be a good thing to motivate innovation - ensuring that as you said, disabled people don't experience yet another inconvenience.

 

Starbucks discontinuing these straws does matter on both a corporate and an individual basis, just given their scale and size relative to the millions of customers they serve every day all over the world.

That's not to say this really is sufficient or good enough though - our problems go way way beyond straws. There's too much consumption (and therefore waste) generally, and it's not possible to really make it all "sustainable."

 

I have no bad takes from any of this and I really appreciate your response. Thank you for clarifying. We are all one step at a time trying to fix a very broken system and planet from all different points of view and i'm happy to have people like you to talk to about stuff like this.