As the environmental doom of our planet grows ever more inevitable, more and more individual citizens are attempting to mitigate the crisis with their personal choices. We “recycle” our paper and plastic, use natural light over fluorescents, and, recently, have transitioned from plastic straws to paper ones.

The trend, publicized with its punny #stopsucking slogan, spread quickly. It initially began with a viral video of a sea turtle choking on a plastic straw and grew from there. People were actually telling their friends to tell their friends to stop sipping with plastic straws.

And, unlike almost all others, this social media movement actually catalyzed changes within governments, businesses, and individual citizens’ behavior. Massive corporations, such as Starbucks, have pledged to transition plastic straws from their stores. Cities like Miami Beach and Seattle have implemented plastic straw bans. People are ordering sodas and waters “sans-straw” at restaurants.

This movement gained popularity particularly with young people, including many here at Parker. Students quickly jumped on the movement and asked that our cafeteria stop providing plastic straws. More modestly, students chided their classmates whom they observed sipping from such forbidden utensils.  

In place of plastic straws, we have been encouraged to either drink without a straw or, if we really want one, to use a paper or metal straw instead.

Still, I see plenty of students sipping from their Starbucks from straw confidently, myself included. I cannot speak for these other students, but I can say that I see little value in changing my straw habits.

Not using plastic straws won’t save the environment. It won’t even make a dent in our plastic waste. Actually, if we replace plastic straws with paper alternatives, we could actually make the problem worse.

Paper straw production creates more air pollution than making plastic straws, according to the New York Post. On top of that, because paper straws get soggy and stop functioning, people often have to use two, if not more, per drink, certainly creating more waste.  

Besides, the main pull for paper over plastic is that paper can be recycled. But, the sad reality is that nearly every paper straw used will not be recycled. Even if drinkers put in the extra effort to recycle their straws separately from their drink containers, a lot of recycling doesn’t actually make it to a recycling plant, with only about 60% actually being recycled, according to the American Forest & Paper Association.  

Apart from offering paper straws, many business are being encouraged to provide drinks in a way that does not necessitate straw use. But, often, these companies are only redesigning their products to gain public favor, not to actually reduce straw use. Starbucks, for example, is eliminating straws by introducing new “strawless” plastic lids, which actually use more plastic than their classic lid and straw combination.  

Essentially, the movement to replace plastic straws does little to actually help our environment, and, sometimes, actually harms it. So then, why are so many people pushing it?

Virtue signaling.

People are conspicuously demonstrating what good people they are by jumping on the bandwagon of hate against plastic straws. It’s easy to let your heartstrings get tugged by a choking sea turtle and forget to do any due diligence in favor of the easiness of bandwagoning.

If people actually wanted to help the environment with their personal choices, they would use more reusable containers and compost at home. But, given their silence over the plastic bottles that crowd the cafeteria fridges, it’s clear that environmental justice is not their true goal.

Virtue signaling like this is not only self-congratulatory and ignorant, but it also asks us to ignore the real problems. The abundance of plastic pollution in our environment is not the fault of individual citizen’s single-use plastic consumption.  

The real perpetrators are big businesses that consistently dodge environmental legislation and the governments that allow them to get away with it. It is counter-productive to pretend that we, as a community of private citizens, can reverse the effects of climate change by making our actions as environmentally friendly as possible. We cannot let these corporations shield themselves behind grassroots movements.

All of this isn’t to say that you shouldn’t recycle or make choices with the environment in mind.  I still separate my recyclables from my trash and try to use a reusable coffee mug, but I am aware of how much of an effect I’m actually creating. I know that, if we want to create real change, we need to push environmental legislation and hold big companies accountable, not stop drinking from plastic straws.