Americans throw away 500 million plastic straws each day – or not
Americans are said to use 500 million plastic straws each day.
Where did the 500 million estimate come from? A child named Milo Cress did a telephone survey – when he was nine years old in 2011.
This is said to be the sole source of this estimate, now quoted by politicians, the media, the National Park Service and the National Restaurant Association.
A lot of people accept this number without realizing it means roughly everyone in the U.S. uses nearly two straws every day, which seems unlikely.
This source says Americans use 1.6 straws per day; l do not even remember the last time I used a straw and I doubt many Americans are using any straws per day.
Propagandists like numbers – because no matter how off the wall they may be – numbers give the message authority.
In 2015, a video of a sea turtle with a straw in its nose spread “viral” online, and led to numerous U.S. jurisdictions banning straws. It is unlikely that use of a straw in the interior of the U.S. will end up in the sea. However, much fast food trash ends up along roadways, and in coastal communities this trash can wash into streams and rivers and enter the sea.
The researchers who extracted the “straw” acknowledge it may not have been a straw but possibly a section of electrical wire insulation. Relative to other threats to sea turtles, straws are zero on the list: Sea Turtle Straw Fake Story | Get Facts – Phantom Plastics. (That goes to a web page by a plastics consultant. That does not mean it is wrong but shows there are valid points of disagreement.)
There are other actions that would benefit sea turtles more than banning straws (there is only 1 report of a straw affecting a sea turtle). This illustrates how propaganda and public perception guide policy despite the ineffectiveness of the policy.
Milo Cress turned the issue of plastic straws into his career: Milo Cress – Wikipedia
He founded Be Straw Free and works as an environmental activist.