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In a sip, Seattle became Sunday the first major US city to ban straws, an environmentally friendly gesture that will spark a national conversation about the small daily changes people can make to protect the planet. [19659002] A decade ago, the city passed an order requiring all single-use foods to be compostable or recyclable, according to the Seattle Times . But straws and other cutlery were exempt from this law because there were not many good alternatives.
So the straws stayed, as well as the environmental problems that they cause until Sunday.
The decision to ban straws in Seattle came three months after the city of St. Petersburg announced its own campaign against plastic straws for single use called "No Straws St. Pete". The campaign hopes to convince businesses and residents to limit their use of disposable plastic straws.
One of the ways the campaign hopes to achieve this is to change the consumer culture in St. Petersburg to not need straws, asking companies to provide plastic straws to customers, not automatically
RELATED: "No Straws St. Pete" Sends a Message: Stop Using Plastic Straws
"Most plastic straws are not not heavy enough to get through industrial sorting machines "and can ruin another good recycling load. Or they end up being blown out of trash cans and car windows and end up in the oceans, where they can hurt wildlife.
Strawless Ocean estimates that 71 percent of seabirds and 30 percent of turtles have some kind of plastic in their stomachs, which can reduce their mortality rate by half.
"I truly believe that it is our responsibility to be good stewards of our waterfront," said Gina Driscoll, a member of St Petersburg City Council. Petersburg and Seattle are not alone in the movement against disposable plastic straws, with companies as big as McDonald's starting to look for alternatives. The fast food chain announced on June 15 that it would switch to biodegradable paper straws at all its locations in the UK and Ireland, and test an alternative to plastics in some of its US restaurants later in the year. # 39; year.
REPORTER: McDonald's to test alternatives to plastic straws in the United States
Customers of grocery stores, restaurants, truck-restaurants and even institutional cafeterias must find another way to get liquid in their mouths. in Seattle. Compostable paper and plastic straws are allowed under the ban. People who have a medical need to use a straw are exempt.
Failure to comply may result in a $ 250 fine, although city officials told the Times that the first phase of the law was more aimed at raising awareness people who distribute tickets to dishonest customers
. Companies participated in Strawless in Seattle, an attempt to reduce the use of plastic straws. According to Strawless Ocean, 2.3 million plastic straws were removed from the city in just that month.
"When you get your coffee with ice milk, you'll have a straw. Dune Ives, executive director of the Lonely Whale Foundation, who led the campaign, told the Times. "Once we begin to observe our daily lives, it's really easy to see how fast" plastic adds up.
U.N. Goodwill ambassador Adrian Grenier lent his celebrity to the .StopSucking campaign
But consumers also lobbied companies for them to eliminate plastic straws. There is, for example, a petition on Change.org requiring McDonald's to pass eyelids without glitches.
"Imagine a world where we could stop consuming 500 million straws a day, just in America! the campaign says. "Imagine a world that is less dependent on plastic, it's a change we can start today!"
And even Starbucks, based in Seattle, is trying to change its business model.
Times editor Josh Fiallo contributed to this report
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