Where does it end with this crapola: to ban or not to ban (and yes, I have been on and on about this). But a new study from South Korea suggests paper straws might actually be worse for the environment than plastic ones. It seems the problem comes from the fact that since paper straws are so small, they slip through the sorting equipment at recycling centers, meaning very few actually get recycled.
Additionally, these straws are created with a water-resistant coating and industrial glues, which also prevent them from breaking down easily. These hindrances demand more energy expenditure during the recycling process, leaving a greater possibility for microplastics to end up in the recycled pulp.
(Yeah, there are those damn microplastics again!)
Again, study the study, see where the results are coming from, but I know from my own end of things (and don’t shutter when I reveal this) that all those new cloth-kinda bags that my folks get from Stop & Shop deliveries, I simply gather up and throw in the garbage. Do they recycle? I don’t know. And again, don’t shudder when I admit this…I don’t care. The bag ban came; I reluctantly went along (although not when I shop for groceries in PA, my favorite GIANT store loads me up with as many plastic bags as I want), and the result is that I have so many of those cloth-kinda bags (the people manufacturing these things must be making a killing) that I simply throw them away.
Straws, bags, microplastics; ban them or not? Which way should we go? It’s all beyond my pay grade. But I do recall reading the wonderful John ‘Derf’ Backderf’s graphic novel “Trashed” and learning lots about how wonderful recycling actually isn’t. In fact, according to Derf’s non-fiction account when he worked in garbage, recycling as a whole seems rather useless in many ways.
The ins and outs of this very popular, seemingly saving grace of ecologists is, as I mention above, beyond my pay grade to fully comprehend. But the effectiveness of recycling is worth questioning, as is everything in life, no matter how suddenly popular something is, how vociferously a current administration touts it, or just how the culture spins to suddenly embrace it. As with lots of things these days, if it is tweeted enough, or some group launches a loud enough campaign, whatever it is, is accepted by so many as truth.
Let me give you a example:
I have a buddy who works at a local community college, and in the art department there Pablo Picasso is persona non grata. Yes, one of the more important artists of recent times is dismissed by the intelligentsia of the college, therefore not taught to students, because some group feel P.P. was a misogynist. Again, this might be some folks’ perception of the man, but it is not only taken as fact but impacts the fact that he won’t be studied. And even if the man was a misogynist (and I am not granting he was), a.) Who cares? b.) Can’t we separate the man from his work in being able to appreciate his work? c.) By whose definition was he a misogynist, and why does this definition stand for everyone? and d.) why is it bad being a misogynist?
See the danger in just listening to a group because they are large in population, catch the cultural zeitgeist, or claim scientific fact for something?
So, what’s the solution to this straw conundrum? It seems reusable straws, for now, might be our best bet. Or we can forgo straws altogether. As I learned so long ago, straws don’t suck; people do. And space is a vacuum because the Earth sucks.
