Plastics count for 40% of all litter and take over 2000 years to break down. Yet, almost 3 million plastics are created every year and are commonly one-time use.

The regular plastic straw has flaw after flaw. These straws cannot be biodegradable or even broken down by bacteria. It affects marine life, garbage in landfills and can even affect ourselves. The worst part about this, each straw is a one time use object. After sipping on a straw, and it is forced to be thrown out minutes after it has been used it. A chemical reaction can produce if plastics straws are being reduced, reused or recycled. Every day more straws are used. So many that they are ending up in places they shouldn’t. Most of the time, straws are used out of utter laziness, with no reason at all. These wasteful objects will continue to be thrown out one after one. In a lifetime of an average person, they will go through over 38 000 straws. That translates to over 500 straws used every day. 500 straws thrown way, one after one. 500 straws thrown into landfills every day. It is unreasonable the number of straws that are being used, for these small one time use purposes and needs to stop. A common mistake that straws are recyclable. Some may be, however they often don't make it through the mechanical machine, as they are so small and slip by.

The effect of plastics straws has strong effects on the ocean. It’s commonly said that a major issue from this is because, by 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the water. To think, from us needing to use these one-time-use materials, so many plastics will lay in the ocean. Not only will they just sit there, but they will also be ingested by marine life. 99% of plastics will have been ingested by 2050, by birds, marine life and so much more. As it goes onto the food chain, other animals will go on to eat this, affecting more and more people. Even humans are part of this food chain and will eventually be infected and ingesting plastics. By human's actions, people will be risking there health. For a simple use of a plastic straw. It can even end up in our waterways and continue to the ocean as runoff. The scariest part of this, slowly as these plastics lay in the ocean, they will turn into microplastics. If this were to happen, marine life and so many more species wouldn’t have a chance of surviving.

It seems like an impossible task, but avoiding plastics straws can be very easy. All that is asked is to sip your drinks. For most people, this isn’t a problem. It may be an extra hassle, and it may not be the favoured method but it would mean saving others and humanity's life. Although there aren’t any benefits from using a straw, some condition requires people to drink with straws. Even if people just enjoy using straws, there are many alternatives. Compostable straws like paper and cardboard ones can decompose much faster. If our major retailer industry sold these and restaurants and fast-food chains were able to change their ways, so many people would be saved. Think about this, if 25 000 people stopped using straws, 5 000 000 straws would be saved. Become one of them and continue to save the planet today!