The plastic straw ban happened largely because a viral video of a sea turtle with a straw stuck in his nose, back in 2015 drew attention to oceanic plastic waste. A large amount is fishing nets and fishing gear, but focus was kept on straws due to the video and because it was something easy corporations could work with, compared to fishing gear which would be more complicated.
So from this I’ve learned
1) Never let the corporations control the conversation.
2) Change takes time to truly take affect. Took 3 years for this to become a mainstream conversation, of any type.
3) People’s empathy works best when it’s shown immediate, direct consequences of their actions. The video itself is over 8 minutes long with the turtle visibly in terrible pain, wincing and yelping as the straw is removed and bleeding profusely. A chart of oceanic waste or a dedicated study is never going to have the same effect, and certainly not going to make you think about it every time you see a straw.
4) You can’t control what goes viral. There is another video with a million views that features rescuers saving a turtle from a fishing net (statistically a much greater danger), and another saving a turtle from a plastic fork. But for some reason, the straw one caught the public eye.
5) But you can control the conversation afterward. The earliest advocacy was against all single use plastics, not just straws, but people managed to reduce it down to just a straw ban. Don’t let them negotiate down, keep to the course.
6) People need something to do. Advocacy is long and tiring and has no immediate payoff. Most people can’t afford the time and energy. What people can afford, however, is to skip their straws and know that there’s one less turtle in danger.
There is good news though, as just this year the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN made guidelines to eliminate waste from fishing gear, inspired by recent blowback against plastic waste. So just because it’s not the part getting press doesn’t mean that good, structural change isn’t happening. It’s just a lot less flashy than a starbucks straw.
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