More on straws- plastic sucks.

An article was published today in The Atlantic that I wanted to link to the steem community for exposure in this group.

This article highlights the history of the modern straw. I posted about a month ago about attending a documentary called * STRAWS* highlighting single use plastics in modern culture and how it is having devastating impacts on our environment. Since then I have been spreading the word and encouraging my friends and co-workers to think about their day to day choices that impact the environment.

This article is interesting and gives a history of the straw and leaves the reader understanding the absolute absurdity of how straws have become so commonplace with any beverage purchased.

In 1911, there were actually public health laws in communities through out the United States that regulated the availability of plastic wrapped drinking straws in public areas to prevent the spread of disease.

Temperance and public health grew up together in the disease-ridden cities of America, where despite the modern conveniences and excitements, mortality rates were higher than in the countryside. Straws became a key part of maintaining good hygiene and public health. They became, specifically, part of the answer to the scourge of unclean drinking glasses. Cities begin requiring the use of straws in the late 1890s. A Wisconsin paper noted in 1896 that already in many cities “ordinances have been issued making the use of wrapped drinking straws essential in public eating places.”

But the laws that regulated health went further. A Kansas doctor campaigned against the widespread use of the “common cup,” which was ... a cup, that many people drank from. Bans began in Kansas and spread.

The article is certainly worth a read. Especially to allow environmental stewards an educated position to discuss single plastic use with others that may have never thought about it's impacts. The author concludes in a powerful final statement.

While bulk capitalism pushes hundreds of millions of plain plastic straws through the American food system, there are also thousands of variations on the straw now, from the “krazy” whirling neon kind to a new natural straw made from rye stalks advertised on Kickstarter (the entrepreneur calls them “Straw Straws”). There are old-school paper straws and newfangled compostable plastic straws. Stone Straw, founded by the inventor of the artificial straw, even survives in some form as the straw-distributing subsidiary of a Canadian manufacturing concern. Basically, there’s never been a better time to be a straw consumer.

Meanwhile, the country has shed manufacturing jobs for decades, straws contribute their share to a dire global environmental disaster, the economy continues to concentrate wealth among the very richest, and the sodas that pass through the nation’s straws are contributing to an obesity epidemic that threatens to erase many of the public health gains that were won in the 20th century. Local governments may legislate the use of the plastic straw, but they can’t do a thing about the vast system that’s attached to the straw, which created first disposable products, then companies, and finally people.

The straw is the opposite of special. History has flowed around and through it, like thousands of other bits of material culture. What’s happened to the straw might not even be worth comment, and certainly not essay. But if it’s not clear by now, straws, in this story, are us, inevitable vessels of the times in which we live.

Photos and text from the full article at:
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/06/disposable-america/563204/