California lawmaker wants to prohibit restaurants from providing plastic straws unless requested

[pcgeek11]

_Some_ areas and countries are indeed short of landfill space, though I doubt the US is.

But small plastic items like bags and straws are particularly likely to end up scattered across the countryside/cityscape rather than staying put in landfill. People drop them as litter in a way they don't with larger items, and they get blown around by the wind more. Sometimes you can tell you are near a landfill site by all the plastic bags apparently growing on the nearby trees.

What is it with many US right-wingers and their determination to oppose anything they think 'liberals' might support, even if it means cutting their own throats? It's a bit pathetic at times.
Plastic waste is a problem, it even gets into the food chain.

Doesn't mean _every_ 'green' sounding proposal needs to be supported uncritically (there are certainly plenty of flawed ones, e.g. feed-in tariffs for microwind and solar), but it's perfectly valid even for those with a deep faith in 'markets' to want to look closely at how to internalise externalities like litter and pollution.

I agree they should outlaw plastic straws and go back to paper ones.
The same for those plastic grocery bags. They are recyclable, but many just throw them into regular trash.

 

[imported_tajmahal]

Who cares how much ice, how much sugar or how many straws? We're talking about authoritarian lefties that want to pass a law punishing people for offering people a straw, a fking straw!

 

[senseamp]

This is no worse than putting people in jail for a plant.

 

[pmv]

Who cares how much ice, how much sugar or how many straws? We're talking about authoritarian lefties that want to pass a law punishing people for offering people a straw, a fking straw!

Oh stop posturing. The argument is over the principle rather than the wording of one particular proposal. Clearly some sort of levy or even voluntary agreement would be the better way forward than threatening jail time, but I don't for a moment think the latter is ever actually going to happen. In any case, your country already sends people to jail for even the most trivial things (thanks to 'three strikes' and the war on drugs), at least if they are poor, so doing so over straws seems as American as a McDonald's apple pie.

 

[IronWing]

WTF is an ice lolly?

Popsicle

 

[zinfamous]

OK, best I could do right now, tested the same "straw" on 2 of our scales.

I couldn't find a consumer straw, but we have these polypropylene spatulas that we use for dispensing reagents to make buffers. It's a "fancy" straw.
https://assets.fishersci.com/TFS-Assets/CCG/product-images/F203456~p.eps-650.jpg

Obviously these are a good bit heavier than a consumer straws (which probably made from the same class of polystyrene used to make those clear drinking cups?), and larger. The material clearly has more mass to the touch, and is far stiffer.

The "simple" scale (100mg):
1.0g

Our ultra sensitive scale, (down to ~100ug):
947.7mg

Hmm, I'm going to scour the breakroom, there must be something...

EDIT: I found a coffee-stirrer in the breakroom. (Standard, narrow, black coffee stirrer):

236.3mg

Hey guys--I have some updated data!

I managed to liberate an actual Chik Fil-A beverage straw from the University commissary and measured it with our scale. I would consider this to be relative to the "standard" type of drinking straw under discussion. (these are dyed red, however. No data yet on the weight of red)

Chik Fil-A drinking straw:

w/ paper wrapper: 1136 mg
w/o wrapper: 995.4 mg

by the way, I am using a Metler Toledo digital scale, model MS104TS to collect this data

Interestingly, the Chik Fil-A straw weighs nearly 50mg more than the lab straw that I measured last week. I expected it to be significantly lighter. ....this is kind of a sturdy straw, however. It is not one of those transparent flimsy straws that you see at cheap diners. Only the best for Chik Fil-A, I guess. (is this one of the reasons that that their food is effing expensive?).

We have a McDonald's, a Sbarro, Panda, Taco Bell, Subway....I might have to make a raid shortly and start measuring various straws.

 

[pmv]

Hey guys--I have some updated data!

I managed to liberate an actual Chik Fil-A beverage straw from the University commissary and measured it with our scale. I would consider this to be relative to the "standard" type of drinking straw under discussion. (these are dyed red, however. No data yet on the weight of red)

Chik Fil-A drinking straw:

w/ paper wrapper: 1136 mg
w/o wrapper: 995.4 mg

by the way, I am using a Metler Toledo digital scale, model MS104TS to collect this data

Interestingly, the Chik Fil-A straw weighs nearly 50mg heavier than the lab straw that I measured last week. I expected it to be significantly lighter. ....this is kind of a sturdy straw, however. It is not one of those transparent flimsy straws that you see at cheap diners. Only the best for Chik Fil-A, I guess. (is this one of the reasons that that their food is effing expensive?).

We have a McDonald's, a Sbarro, Panda, Taco Bell, Subway....I might have to make a raid shortly and start measuring various straws.

For Science!

Unfortunately it seems the figure for straws used has now been thrown into doubt, dammit.

 

[zinfamous]

For Science!

Unfortunately it seems the figure for straws used has now been thrown into doubt, dammit.

unnamed sources reported on the mis-reporting of the figures that unnamed sources originally reported.

...who really knows at this point?

 

[pcgeek11]

Fake Data.

 

[zinfamous]

Fake Data.

well one day I will have more straws, damnit!