Seattle Plans to Go Strawless in September to Protect Marine Animals!

Ditching plastic straws seems to be gaining more and more popularity amongst business owners who are concerned about their impact on the environment. We’ve seen a number of bars and restaurants taking the pledge to ditch plastic straws, but we have some much, much bigger news in this arena. The entire city of Seattle has announced they will forgo plastic straws for the entire month of September!

The initiative for the city to abandon straws was initiated by Lonely Whale Foundation, an organization started by actor Adrien Grenier that is dedicated to marine wildlife education. Their latest campaign involves asking people to accept their challenge to #StopSucking. In September 2017, the foundation will carry out a citywide takeover of Seattle, making the area as close to being plastic straw-free as they can.

As a part of the initiative, leading Seattle businesses and “cultural icons” have committed to using marine degradable alternatives to the usual single-use straws made out of plastic. The campaign, named Strawless in Seattle, is meant to result in a “radical reduction of plastic straw consumption in Seattle.” It is also the first project of its kind and will Support Strawless Ocean’s initiative to remove 500 million plastic straws from the U.S. waste stream in 2017.

Plastic straws are usually handed to customers with their drinks as a default and are thrown away sometimes in the matter of minutes – or even seconds – if the client does not want to use one. The simplest change to this huge waste of harmful plastic is a simple regulation of handing out straws only upon request, which is something a number of places are already introducing. Another great option is opting for an environmentally friendly straw.

Considering that every day, Americans alone use around 500 million plastic straws,  these little items are actually very dangerous, especially to the 700 marine species that are already threatened with extinction due to plastic waste. This is why going strawless – in any city in the world – is definitely the way to go.

Find the calendar of Seattle’s strawless events during September here.

To learn how to use less plastic in your everyday life, check out One Green Planet’s #CrushPlastic campaign!

Image source: Free-Photos/Pixabay