Clutching at Straws
My strawberry-kiwi smoothie tasted, above all, of cardboard.
My young friend Deepak was equally disgusted by his drink. We discarded our straws, and I asked for a spoon, but my palate was wrecked for hours. Later, a quick google search threw up this comment, on a paper manufacturer’s site, “Some people notice a papery or cardboard-like flavour from the straw, while others say there is a chemical taste from the glue used to manufacture it.” Ugh. How did we get here?
In 40 years, we’ve gone full circle, from paper straws, to plastic pipes, to cardboard tubes. The paper straws of my teenage years were flimsy affairs; if you flattened two of them together, you could separate them, then snap them together, with a sharp sound that was guaranteed to irritate my elder sister. The straw that wrecked my smoothie, in contrast, is a rigid, 3-layered hollow cylinder made of industrial-grade kraft paper, as sturdy as the tubes in which you ship large photo prints and calendars. A product of 21st century engineering,
It is also a product of 21st century guilt. And did I mention, it destroys smoothies?
Guilt is good, especially plastic guilt. Most contemporary plastic doesn’t decompose for centuries, and the oceans are particularly vulnerable to plastic pollution. Turtles choke in fishing nets, and as an avid diver, I have more than once mistaken a polythene bag for a jellyfish.
Somewhere between California and Hawaii, ocean currents throw up a massive swirl of discarded plastic, called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPCP). It weighs as much as 500 Jumbo jets, and is spread over 1.6 mn. square kilometers, an area as vast as India’s 6 largest states.
Almost half of the plastic found in the patch is ‘ghost’ fishing nets, adrift in the blue vastness. By weight, 70% of all marine debris is fishing gear – large, rigid pieces of plastic, like floats and buoys. GPCP photographs published on The Ocean Clean Up include images of pistol handles, ghost nets, toothpaste tubes, and traffic cones. No plastic straws.
This is hardly surprising. A site called “Our Last Straw” estimates that there are between 400 mn and 8 billion plastic straws on the world’s coastlines. At half a gram of plastic each, even that larger number is 4,000 tons, or 0.027% of the 15 million tons of plastic debris that finds its way into the oceans every year. The World Wide Fund for Nature, WWF, called 2018 the year of the straw - a term it uses ironically, because “the issue of plastic overrunning our environment is a bit more complicated than straws.”
https://www.worldwildlife.org/magazine/issues/fall-2019/articles/plastic-in-the-ocean
Call it tokenism, or grasping at straws. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines tokenism as “the policy or practice of making only a symbolic effort”. I have nothing against giving up plastic straws; similarly, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with banging thalis to cheer doctors at the onset of COVID. The problem with tokenism is that it gives people the satisfaction of having achieved something; they feel less guilty, and they can get back to life as usual. Major problems, whether marine pollution or a pandemic, require massive policy thought, and behavioural change. This is a really tough ask.
Since fishing debris is the major cause of marine plastic, solving the problem would mean looking at fish production and consumption. A few minutes thinking about this issue, and you realise how complex it is:
don’t you dare suggest people give up fish consumption!
coastal folk will never shift to river fish!
farmed fish tastes like cardboard…etc.
As long as people want fish from the ocean, fishing nets and fishing floats will populate the sea, and I strongly doubt the fishing industry will be persuaded to go back to cotton nets. The very durability of plastic, which makes it a marine menace, is its most attractive feature for the fisherman. I can’t see how technology will come to the rescue. I’m sure polymer science will throw up decomposable plastics for single use packaging, but I can’t imagine this product pitch: “Dear trawler owners - we offer you these wonderful hi-tech nets, that are guaranteed to dissolve into the sea.”
Like the WWF said, it’s complicated. Cardboard straws for everyone. Declare success and move on.
Politicians, above all, know the value of tokenism. When problems are too complex to tackle, especially mapped against the election cycle, they only have to be seen to be doing something.
Banging thaalis is something. So what if you haven’t arranged protective clothing for medical staff, or oxygen for the wards?
“See how concerned we are about the flood afflicted - we took a helicopter flight to wave out at them.” Something.
“We shut the parks on weekends, to keep you safe from COVID.” Something
“Smoothies that taste of cardboard.” I’m not even sure that’s something.
I think restaurants should provide Stainless steel straws as part of the silverware. They are easy to wash. You call it tokenism, i call it a small start 🙂. Start to the end of single use plastics.
Use reusable steel straws. I carry my own stainless steel straws. They are dishwasher safe.