So, you are sitting on a long chaise near a beautiful beach with golden sand, the warm sun piercing through your skin.
You stretch your hand to grab the drinks menu and search for a refreshing cold drink, your eyes land on a beautiful picture of a lovely virgin pina colada, the mixture of pineapple juice and cream of coconut, lots of ice and garnished with a little fresh pineapple piece and maraschino cherry.
Yes, this is what you will order, a few minutes later the drink arrives, exactly as described in the menu. You also receive a little colourful umbrella tucked on the pineapple and of course, the star of the show, the straw!
This smooth plastic avenue will guide the delicious juice to your parched mouth, tickle your taste buds and its ultimate joy.
So, you finish your drink and with everything gone down, the straw hangs in there moving with the blow of every wind.
Then a strong wind blows and the straw flies, it is not a plastic cup nor a bottle. It is just a 40-gramme flying plastic that lands in the sea, or is buried in the sand and maybe continues its flight towards the city and lands somewhere in a drainage system, this 40 or so grams of plastic is responsible for thousands of tons of plastic waste that hits the water bodies of our already polluted world.
Several attempts were made by environmentalists to encourage the removal of these straws from the supermarket shelves, the European Union has developed strong measures against plastic straws and the US was following the same path.
It also seems that very large and well-known coffee houses have phased out plastic straws, replacing them with paper or bamboo ones.
And, then President Donald Trump takes office and just a few weeks in office, as if it is the most urgent matter in hand, he signs an executive order ending the efforts to replace plastic straws with paper ones and calls the paper ones disgusting.
He even states that he does not think the plastic will hurt sharks when they are munching their way in the ocean. Honestly, I do not know what to say about this, without harbouring some political talk, which is for sure behind this, as I have promised myself not to talk politics, until we have got rid of partisan politics and the darkness it brings along.
However, I think there is so much that depends on individuals and their role in such matters. Gone are the times that people depended only on leadership to guide them, being political or religious.
Although social media and internet could be as much disruptive and troublesome, the choice is still there to do further search and choose one’s direction.
The alternatives of the plastic straws have come up, but interestingly none seem to give the needed satisfaction, the metal ones can hurt the teeth if mishandled, the glass ones are quite fragile and the paper ones have not proven their worth. Besides dissolving quite fast with hot beverages, the components are not completely toxin free. For some using a straw is causal, but for those with swallowing disorders, it is just a way to survive!
