Plastic straws have been ranked in the top 10 list of items found on the beach during beach clean-ups since 1989, according to the Ocean Conservancy. These incredibly harmful plastic products can travel easily to the ocean, harming organisms, wildlife, and the general biodiversity of the beaches....help us change that! The goal of "No Straw November" is to bring awareness to the millions of plastic straws that are being used once and then thrown away in a single month. We challenge you to refuse plastic straws the whole month of November and to keep a tally of how many straws you eliminated from potentially ending up in the ocean.
Plastic Straw Data
-500 million straws are used in the US every day
-500 million straws could fill over 127 school buses each day, or more than 46,400 school buses every year
-500 million straws per day is an average of 1.6 straws per person (in the US) per day. Based on this national average, each person in the US will use approximately 38,300 or more straws between the ages 5 and 65
Environmental Impact of Plastic Straws*
Petroleum plastics last forever
-Plastic byproducts do not degrade naturally, but break up into infinitely smaller pieces
-Plastic straws fill ocean gyres
-Plastic straws kill marine life and other organisms
What You Can Do
-Refuse plastic straws when you order a beverage
-Ask your favorite restaurant to use plastic straw alternatives such as: glass, paper, metal
*Information from One Green Planet