When talking about conservation often there is a disconnect between people’s behavior and their beliefs.  I am included in this group.  Something that really struck me recently was a video of a sea turtle with a straw stuck in it’s nose.  The graphic video shows a clearly suffering olive ridley sea turtle having a large chunk of plastic straw extracted from it’s nose with a multi-tool by wildlife biologists.  For me, this video was really upsetting…and yet, months later here I am still using straws in my iced coffee…why?

Excuses really…I have asked myself:  how many straws are sitting in warehouses somewhere?  Billions?  How can one person not using straws help that?

In the bigger picture though this sea turtle’s plight doesn’t effect my life.  I was sad after watching the video, temporarily moved to google how to be straw free a couple times, conclude that this would be difficult and move on…  And isn’t buying a reusable straw the same as using a straw?  What if I throw that away too?  Won’t I, then, just be contributing to the problem but in a different way?  Are these more excuses?

What doesn’t help is that many of the online publications sharing this story, including this article in national geographic mention ‘going straw free,’ but don’t include any information on how to actually do this.  Are they assuming that without some guidance we can figure this out ourselves?  Another thing missing from these articles is how one person might be able to actually have an impact on wildlife.  For example, one person produces x amount of trash a year, by not using straws (or reusable plastic items?) they would be reducing this by y.

I’ve decided to t for me thend after doing a little research I found that the easiest way to go straw free is probably to simply stop using straws (gasp).  The only thing I really use straws for is my iced coffee so this should be easy enough, since I am capable of drinking out of a cup.  But just in case I need to move with my iced coffee (like drink it while walking my dogs) I think I’ll order a re-usable hot/cold mug that I can use for my morning coffee and make a promise to myself that I won’t throw it away for a year…

What do you do in your everyday life to minimize your single serving plastic product use?