Ever notice that in some restaurants you’re automatically given a straw for your drink, even if you don’t want one?  Ever think about how many single-use straws are used and discarded every day?

9 year old Milo Cress of Burlington, Vermont has, and he’s doing something about it.  We were recently inspired by an article in the Boston Globe profiling him and his “Be Straw Free” project.

Milo is leading a charge to make Burlington the first in the country to be the first “straw -free” city in the country.  He’s championing an “offer first” policy, in which restaurants offer customers a straw instead of automatically putting one in every drink or on the table.

But why go strawless?  Here are some sobering facts:

  • According to Milo, 500 million straws are used every day in the U.S.
  • Nearly all straws are used once and then thrown away.  Plastic never fully decomposes, so every straw we’ve used is still sitting in a landfill.
  • Straws are one of the most frequently found pieces of trash in beach cleanups
  • Disposable straws are made of plastic.   Plastic can leach toxins into your food.

Milo is also challenging us to commit to not using disposable straws for one month.  You can sign up to do so here.

If you really like straws but don’t want to contribute to plastic waste, what can you do?  Look for companies making reusable glass, bamboo, and steel straws.  One of Milo’s sponsors, Glass Dharma, offers glass straws with a lifetime guarantee against breakage.

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