Comment: Plastic drinking straws have become a political wedge issue, with environmentalists and disability rights advocates at odds l niltiac
Surely it would be easy to just get rid of the darn things? For most of us, straws are a luxury.
We could argue the toss but I reckon we need to listen to people about the way their own bodies work and interact with the world. To insist that something is viable when the person with direct lived experience says it’s not is pretty gross. What’s the answer? The world needs to move away from plastics if we want a habitable planet, but it’s not fair if people with disabilities pay a greater price.
But long-term there’s an economic question to answer. Just say we shift the culture and we all stop using straws unless we truly need them. What then? We urgently need to develop materials that are as flexible, strong, temperature-resistant and as cheap as plastic, but are non-toxic and break down quickly in the environment. This would solve more than just the problem with straws.There’s a role for government because markets are efficient at solving purely economic problems, but intervention is needed when there’s market failure or to solve social and environmental problems.
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