Finally, it’s warm enough to walk the streets of New York while nursing an iced coffee, a chilled juice or a cold soda. It’s straw season.
But in many quarters, the ubiquitous plastic straw has suddenly become a pariah for the harm it can do to the environment.
The United States alone uses and discards millions of plastic straws every day, according to Eco-Cycle, a nonprofit group that promotes recycling. While straws account for only a small fraction of the single-use plastics in circulation or in landfills, their size and shape make them a threat to marine life; the straws can entrap animals and be swallowed whole by fish.
Online campaigns like Stop Sucking and the Last Plastic Straw have declared war on the straws. Some cities, including Seattle and Malibu, Calif., have banned them. Britain’s prime minister, Theresa May, has vowed to outlaw the sale of plastic straws before the end of the year.
In New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo have railed against plastic bags. (Mr. Cuomo recently introduced a bill to outlaw single-use plastic bags.) But it’s not government officials or consumers who seem to be leading the shift away from plastic straws. It’s businesses.
Last month, Kerry Diamond began offering paper as well as plastic straws at Smith Canteen, her coffee shop in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, after talking to her brother Patrick Diamond, who heads the Rise Above Plastics campaign for the New York City chapter of the Surfrider Foundation.
She said that despite all the online chatter about alternatives to plastic straws, no customer had ever requested one. To her surprise, the restaurant ran out of paper straws in a week. “This is something people wanted more than I anticipated,” Ms. Diamond said.
At Inday, three fast-casual Indian restaurants in Manhattan, the owner, Basu Ratnam, has received countless emails from customers asking about his recycling policies and the sustainability of the bowls and cutlery — but none about straws.
In April, after reading reports about how plastic straws contributed to whale deaths, Mr. Ratnam stopped putting them out at Inday’s flagship.
“People stopped asking for them,” he said. “Straws are a small, nonessential beverage accessory that we found people aren’t super attached to. We have been able to change customer behavior without being disruptive.” He has since stopped putting out straws at all his restaurants (though customers can get plastic straws on request).
For some businesses, eliminating straws is an aesthetic decision. The upscale Mexican restaurants Atla and Cosme, in Manhattan, offer only metal or paper straws — and only on request.
The beverage director, Yana Volfson, said that because she carefully chooses the glassware, a straw of any kind “would take away from that more visceral experience of a cocktail.” Drinks like a margarita, which has a salt-lined rim, she said, are meant for strawless sipping.
“Why have we made it the norm that every cocktail should be served with a straw, even when someone doesn’t need or hasn’t asked for one?” she said.
When asked, several customers said they favored doing away with plastic straws, but would stop using them only if restaurants took the lead.
“When you order a glass of water at a diner, the waiter just automatically brings the straw,” said Ninna Seerup, 29, who was sipping coffee (sans straw) at Kos Kaffe in Park Slope, Brooklyn. “When you think about it, you don’t need it, but it’s already there.” (On the other hand, she said she found the idea of reusing a metal straw “a bit disgusting.”)
At another table, Louise Laage Toft, also 29, said she loved the protection that straws provide. “When I have a Coke, I like drinking it with a straw so I don’t touch anything to my teeth,” she said. But if plastic straws were banned, she added: “I would be fine with it. The environment is more important than me and my weirdness.”
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