 Straw Close-up on a White Background Marco Verch/flickr | Correction appended • A small piece of plastic making a huge difference One small tube of plastic, a garnish to many a drink. Thin paper intricately wrapped around it to protect it from the elements. The Straw - a staple to many when dining or imbibing cocktails. Many of these straws end up polluting our oceans. |
In the meetings and events industry, how many straws are tossed during an event? Estimate: 300 people + 3 meals a day + 2 breaks = potentially 1500 straws for water, juice, soda…we didn’t even start on cocktails. More and more bartenders are being asked to eliminate straws from cocktails as most people do not use them, we are likely to either stir and remove the straw ourselves or bend the straw over the side of the glass and not use it at all.
Large festivals, such as Coachella, have also gotten on board to reduce plastic straws. Coachella was the first 100% straw free festival in America. Live Nation has committed to removing all single-use plastic straws in favor of a marine-friendly paper alternative at the company’s 45 owned and operated amphitheaters across the US. (Live Nation, Coachella, Stagecoach Enact Ban on Plastic Straws www.billboard.com/articles/business/8359711/live-nation-coachella-stagecoach-ban-plastic-straws)
If festivals and venues of this magnitude can do it, so can you. The use of reusable water bottles already eliminate this factor, but when planning your dining and cocktail receptions consider going strawless or using marine-degradable paper straws (roughly $0.07 per straw).
Your next CSR could be Lonely Whale’s ‘For A Strawless Ocean’ movement. To learn more go to www.StrawlessOcean.org .
CORRECTION (May 14, 2018, 2:05 p.m. CST): An earlier version of this article included an incorrect statistic, that over 500 million straws are thrown away a day in America. That figure, which has been debunked, originally came from the group Be Straw Free, and does not appear to have been based on an exact research. At this time there is no true and reliable figure on how many straws are used per day.
Large festivals, such as Coachella, have also gotten on board to reduce plastic straws. Coachella was the first 100% straw free festival in America. Live Nation has committed to removing all single-use plastic straws in favor of a marine-friendly paper alternative at the company’s 45 owned and operated amphitheaters across the US. (Live Nation, Coachella, Stagecoach Enact Ban on Plastic Straws www.billboard.com/articles/business/8359711/live-nation-coachella-stagecoach-ban-plastic-straws)
If festivals and venues of this magnitude can do it, so can you. The use of reusable water bottles already eliminate this factor, but when planning your dining and cocktail receptions consider going strawless or using marine-degradable paper straws (roughly $0.07 per straw).
Your next CSR could be Lonely Whale’s ‘For A Strawless Ocean’ movement. To learn more go to www.StrawlessOcean.org .
CORRECTION (May 14, 2018, 2:05 p.m. CST): An earlier version of this article included an incorrect statistic, that over 500 million straws are thrown away a day in America. That figure, which has been debunked, originally came from the group Be Straw Free, and does not appear to have been based on an exact research. At this time there is no true and reliable figure on how many straws are used per day.
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