By the end of 2021, Canada is mulling a blanket national ban on plastic straws and other single-use plastics.
Ocean plastic is indeed a major environmental problem. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is now three times the size of France, and according to the World Economic Forum, if current trends continue by 2050 we’re going to have more kilograms of plastic in the oceans than kilograms of fish.
But if you take a quick look at where all this plastic is coming from, you’ll quickly come to the conclusion that banning straws at North American restaurants was pretty much the least effective way to address this problem.
So where is the ocean plastic coming from? Two places. One: Ghost gear. This is fishing gear that has fallen off of commercial boats and then wanders the ocean needlessly killing wildlife until it disintegrates. Up to 46 percent of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is ghost gear.See, Second: Poor waste management in the developing world.
if I use a plastic straw at a fast food joint, when I’m done with it that plastic straw goes in a garbage bin, which is then picked up by civil servants who take it to different civil servants who bury it in the ground and cover it with clay.
Notice the lack of any ocean in that equation.
And that’s basically the program throughout Europe and North America: Unless you’re a putz who’s literally chucking your slushie in the sea, your straw’s final resting place is well-removed from any unfortunate sea turtles.
But if you live in a community without proper waste infrastructure, your plastic straw might get chucked in a river or dumped on the beach to be dealt with by the tides.
That’s how you get beaches that look like this: