Isn't it just a plastic straw?

ABOUT THE BRIEF USE OF A SINGLE-USE ITEM AND ITS DEVASTATING CONSEQUENCES

Daily, 3 billion plastic straws are used worldwide and usually discarded after just a few minutes . Unlike plastic bags or coffee-to-go cups, in Germany much less awareness of the damage plastic straws cause to our environment . In Germany alone, 40 billion single-use plastic straws are consumed every year. That’s 1.3 plastic straws per person per day. They are relatively small and weigh only a few grams – how much plastic is that already?

It is the compact size of plastic drinking straws that makes them so deadly to marine life.

HOW DO PLASTIC STRAWS END UP IN OUR OCEANS?

Every 7th item found on beaches and rivers is a single-use plastic straw. How can that actually be? Although plastic straws are made of polypropylene and are therefore technically recyclable, recycling machines have difficulty properly detecting the thin drinking tubes. Plastic drinking straws disrupt the recycling process, clog machines, and can even damage them. 

So they are not recycled, but end up in landfills and waste incineration plants. Collected waste that reaches landfills often passes through several stages where the waste is stored outdoors and can easily be blown away – e.g., at ports, directly by the water. As soon as they reach a body of water, it's time to head to the final destination: the ocean, even if it is hundreds of kilometers away.

THE PLASTIC STRAW AND OIL PRODUCTION

Did you know that what you're sucking on is hundreds of millions of years old?

Like almost all types of plastic, it is Polypropylene from petroleum manufactured. The petroleum we consume today – by the way 15,352,722,000 liters per year worldwide – originated hundreds of millions of years ago .

Crude oil must be promoted, which is not only a complex process, but to major environmental pollution leads. Fires, accidents, and leaks regularly contaminate air and water. The extraction methods are becoming increasingly dangerous and environmentally harmful. The World Offshore Accident Database recorded more than 5,000 accidents for offshore operations from 1974 to 2004.

PLASTIC IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR BODY?

In acidic or alcoholic beverages, the Release of plasticizer BPA (Bisphenol A) from the straw . The body confuses this with the female sex hormone estrogen. According to studies, this can lead to Cancer, diabetes, and cardiac arrhythmias and impotencelead.