The Last Straw
-related column I plan to write
In his piece, he links to a 2018 Slate interview with an anti-plastic straw spokesperson. Naturally, I assumed it would be my 2018 Slate interview with an anti-plastic straw advocate. I was wrong—I had spoken with a different anti-plastic straw spokesperson. (Apparently, in 2018, the algorithm had a particular fondness for online magazine interviews with anti-plastic straw activists.)
The Woman Behind the Straw Ban
My own interview was with an activist named Dune Ives, and I wanted to revisit the transcript of this episode of The Gist because it highlights a point that often goes underemphasized. Maurer is correct in saying that the left tried to foist paper straws upon the public, but their arguments for the switch disintegrated almost as quickly as the straws themselves. He is also right that once it became clear how negligibly plastic straws actually contribute to environmental degradation, a backlash was inevitable. But I wanted to add another insight from my interview with Ives: the theory of change behind the straw ban was entirely backward.
The logic was that replacing plastic with paper straws would be a low-cost, no-downside victory that would inspire a multiplier effect of environmental activism. This was baffling. To me—and, I’d assume, to anyone who wasn’t a full-time environmental activist or entirely consumed by motivated reasoning—the opposite seemed more likely. A pointless exercise, based on inaccurate arguments, that led to an unpleasant drinking experience was bound to breed resentment. Did it? I would say so:
At the time of the burgeoning bans, Ives argued that small victories could demonstrate that change was possible and that activism at a hyper-local level was the path forward. But, I asked, isn’t it just as likely that when change doesn’t occur, people will see activism as a waste of time? And isn’t it also possible that if people realized how tiny the environmental impact of plastic straws actually is, it could undercut broader environmental advocacy?
Ives dismissed this, claiming th1e straw ban was already yesterday’s activism and had successfully sparked momentum for further bans. “We're already seeing people move beyond the straw to looking at where else don’t we need” she told me—incorrectly, as the facts would later prove.
Ives has since left her position at The Lonely Whale Foundation and now runs her own consulting firm, Movements That Matter. One of her major clients? The Ball Corporation—makers of those mason jars with the two-piece lids (for some reason) and the naming sponsor of the Denver Nuggets’ home arena. While not one of the NBA’s greenest venues, it is the first NBA arena to introduce aluminum cups—supplied, of course, by Ball Corporation.
From The Gist,Sept 24, 2018: “That’s the First Straw”
Mike Pesca: One day, we might look at plastic straws as we do leaded gasoline, or as they used to call it, gasoline. There is a current trend, gaining steam, to think about the use of plastic straws and to think about it quite harshly and possibly to eliminate it. But why? Where did this come from? How effective will a plastic straw ban be? It turns out a lot of the intellectual heft behind the idea comes from Dune Ives.
Dr. Dune Ives is the executive director of the Lonely Whale Foundation, which specializes in ocean conservation. She also has a PhD in psychology, which will come into play as you will hear.
Hello, Dr. Ives, how are you?
Dr. Dune Ives: I'm well, I'm well. Thanks for having me on the program.
MP: Yeah, absolutely. What was the problem you were trying to solve?
DI: We know that, depending on where you fall in the spectrum of conservative estimates, roughly 500 million single-use plastic straws are used every day in the United States. By our estimates of all of the corporate shift from single-use plastic straws and all the city-level shift from single-use plastic straws, by the end of 2020, already, we will have eliminated 8 billion single-use plastic straws globally.
Now, let's say just a fraction of those get into the marine environment. When they enter the ocean, rivers, lakes, every single one of those plastic straws breaks down into microplastics. Microplastics are nearly impossible to get out in the marine environment, and they're finding their way into our food source, into our drinking water, into sea salt, for crying out loud. So we know that it's going to have some impact. But importantly, we have an entire globe of people now that are really focused on single-use plastic pollution. And by doing that, hopefully we'll reduce single-use plastic pollution even more than we've done with the single-use plastic straw.
MP: How does a user, a would-be straw sucker in Kansas City and Denver––who lives a thousand miles away from a coast––how might their straws get in the ocean and how important is it for them to give up straws?
DI: A lot of us have forgotten the lessons that we learned in grade school, that every river and lake is also part of the ocean at large. So the Great Lakes are part of the ocean. So what happens in the Great Lakes ultimately is going to impact what is happening with our global ocean. And we know that straws are making their way into rivers. I mean, there's so much evidence for straws and microplastics in rivers and in lakes, that having impacts inland, maybe it isn't as great as having impacts in the coastal areas, but it still matters. So every straw matters. Every piece of single-use plastic that could get into rivers or into lakes matters as well, and it impacts local communities.
So if you fish out of a lake, you fish out of a river, the last thing you're going to want to see is you're going to want to see plastic floating along with that fish because it's breaking into microplastics as well. Let’s just stop putting plastic in the water no matter where you live.
Mere Hundredths of a Percent of Ocean Plastics
MP: Yes, but I have heard that, and granted, they're not good for the environment, but I have read very credible estimates that say of the plastics in the ocean, they account for 0.03%.
DI: I have no reason to believe that that's not true.
MP: If it's so small and it will have so little actual impact, why are you convinced that if (1) you tell people to give up straws, then (2) they do give up straws, and then (3) we measure the impact and it's almost nothing, why do you think that will spur greater change and not just lead to people being discouraged?
DI: What we're seeing with individuals and even companies that are addressing the single use plastic straw to begin with is they quickly shift to the conversation of okay, so what else can I do now? The Tom Douglas restaurants in Seattle were one of the early signer-ons for the Strawless in Seattle campaign that we ran, and we did a training with over 150 of their managers across every single one of their restaurants. Somebody raised their hand and they said,I totally understand, we should not be using single-use plastic straws. But why do I get my oyster and shellfish in plastic bags that I can't recycle? That's the conversation that we're really expecting to see, and that's what we've started to see across the board, with individuals, corporations, and brands.
We just partnered with Bacardi for a global campaign called The Future Doesn't Suck which will reduce single-use plastic straws with their No Straws pledge. Now they're looking at not only this global campaign with us, but also at plastic reduction across operations and supply chain.
BACC: Bartenders Against Consumable Cocktails
MP: Okay, and why do you think that the Bacardi pledge isn't just an easy thing that won't hurt their bottom line, that gets them a lot of credibility? Why do you think that there's proof that this will lead to greater change, versus companies getting a little bit of credit because environmentalism is pretty trendy right now, and this is a pretty easy lift?
DI: When we looked for the next iteration of our straw campaign, we specifically sought out Bacardi. Bacardi is the largest spirit company in the world. They engage with mixologists every single day across the globe.
And we know that there are two very influential types of people, at least in the western part of the world, that are out there. One is your hairdresser, if you're a woman, you'll tell her your deepest, darkest secrets. And the other one is your bartender. There's a lot of conversation you have with bartenders and a lot of influence that bartenders have regarding what comes into the bar, and what they serve their customers.
Who better to really engage mixologists globally to start a conversation in every single bar and every single restaurant and every single hotel and every single airport around the world about single-use plastic straws than Bacardi.
What we're fully expecting with their commitment, not just on this global straw campaign, that's not enough for us or for them, but we’re really looking at how do you reduce plastic pollution across the board with a global company. We're really expecting that mixologists around the world are going to be inspired by that.
MP: What do you mean by mixologist? Do you mean bartenders?
DI: I do. It's a nice fancy name, don't you think?
MP: So you're saying that if you get to Bacardi, bartenders will talk up the straw initiative.
DI: Not just straw. I think what we're seeing across the board is that people have moved beyond the straw. People have moved to what else can I do? We have a lot of single-use plastic bottles for sparkling water and still water in some restaurants around the world. We've got a lot of single-use plastic bags to-go items in restaurants. We're already seeing people move beyond the straw to looking at where else don't we need single-use plastic and is there a way for us to replace single-use plastic with more sustainable materials or just remove it overall?
The way that we talk about The Lonely Whale these days is that there isn't one solution. There isn't one thing we need to do to solve for this plastic pollution crisis at scale. We've got to hit it from all angles. We have to reduce, we have to recover, we have to repurpose items, we have to replace. And if we all do our part, then we can actually solve for this crisis. This is solvable.
MP: Dune Ives is the executive director of the Lonely Whale Foundation. She is, let us call her, the intellectual foremother of the idea of banning the plastic straw. Thank you very much, Dr. Ives.
DI: Thank you so much for having me and for your interest.
Not a promise, an aspiration.
Do you really not know why the lids on Ball jars are in two pieces? I think you’re very smart but in general, when men play dumb about “home ec” type things as a joke it’s not cute or funny.
The Ball Corporation is a major weapons manufacturer and no longer makes their eponymous jars. That’s how they got stadium money.
“We're already seeing people move beyond the straw to looking at where else don’t we need”
“We’ve already kicked you in the shin, now we are looking for other sensitive body parts that need a good kicking”