THE first time I went to New York, it was sometime in the 1990s with media colleagues attending the launch of an airline’s new route to the Big Apple.
At a popular restaurant chain just off Times Square, we were seated for lunch, and I ordered a glass of water while waiting for our meals to be served.
The service water arrived, and it was served in a rather tall, fat glass—you know how large the serving portions are in the US—with a plastic straw. Of course, as a rather young person still unwise to the ways of the rest of the world, this puzzled me. Of course, here in the Philippines, and the rest of Asia for that matter, we drink our water straight from the glass, or the old water coolers back then, on which you tapped a lever with your foot and out gushed the chilled Nawasa water from a spout.
Well, I tried drinking water through the straw, because “it’s the American thing to do,” but immediately detested it. I thought it was maarte, and it just slowed down my water intake. I like to drink water in gulps, not just because it’s good for our health, but because it’s usually so damned hot in our parts, you need to down the water quickly to quench your thirst.
Why this story about drinking through a plastic straw? Well, apparently the Americans and the rest of the Western hemisphere have finally realized all those plastic straws they’ve been using are destroying the environment and killing marine animals.
According to the environmental blog Get Green Now, Americans used about 390 million plastic straws everyday in 2017. Most of these end up in landfills and eventually discharged into the sea. In fact, plastic straws and stirrers are the “11th most found ocean trash in cleanups, making up about 3 percent of recovered trash,” the blog stresses.
Plastic straws can take up to 200 years to degrade, but in the meantime, are being ingested unwittingly by marine wildlife, or just mucking up our oceans. Other plastic products like fishing nets and trash bags also end up in the ocean, and unknowingly eaten by marine animals. They can’t digest plastic, and these monstrosities slowly choke their stomachs from the inside, leading to their untimely deaths. So, of course, in the most American way possible, they have launched a huge campaign to stop using plastic drinking straws.
Personally, I’ve never been a fan of the drinking straw. Even when taking in other beverages like soda, fruit juices or teas. In my youth, we had paper-drinking straws, but these immediately disintegrated as soon as liquid passed through them. So I would usually throw the paper straw away and just drink my Choco-Vim or Coca-Cola straight from the bottle. This was not considered very feminine back then, but when you’re surrounded with a bunch of other unlady-like creatures in a private Catholic school for girls likewise shunning the straw, you don’t really think much of it. (So, yes, I drink beer straight from the bottle, too. Duh.)
Unfortunately, summer brings the usual thirst for chilled frappucinos, bobba teas and other cutesy liquid beverages, and I confess to ordering a few of these, which are better experienced with a drinking straw. While I have paper straws at home—cute colorful ones I purchased from a party essentials store on a whim—for sure these will fall apart as soon as those thick and frothy creams pass through them.
While summer is still a long ways off, I’m grateful I received a set of metal straws (with brush cleaner) and recyclable wooden utensils recently from Cebu Pacific (CEB). The airline recently partnered with the Department of Tourism, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and local government units for its sustainable tourism campaign. And in their ditty bag for media, the airline included the recyclable dining utensils and metal straws, as well as a stainless steel water bottle.
Dubbed the “Juan Effect,” the carrier’s sustainable tourism campaign “is a call for all stakeholders to come together, collaborate and cooperate toward concerted efforts to ensure that the tourism industry progresses sustainably,” said CEB President Lance Y. Gokongwei during the program’s recent launch.
It’s called “Juan Effect,” he explained, because “the name reflects that actions taken by each of us, no matter how small, can create a significant impact in helping protect our islands when done consistently.”
With this campaign, not only does CEB enjoin the public to take more responsible action toward protecting the environment, but also the airline starting October 1 will replace all its nonrecyclable plastic spoons, forks, stirrers and cups with sustainable alternatives for its in-flight meals and refreshments across all flights.
Juan Effect, I believe, is applicable in every part of our daily lives, not just when we’re vacationing on island destinations. For a long time now, I’ve been using eco bags whenever I make purchases in malls, the supermarket or wet market to minimize the use of plastic shopping bags. And while it may be considered frivolous, I use the eco bags to line my trash bins—just because I get so many of them! (Remember how folding eco bags suddenly became a thing to give for Christmas? Good grief. Let’s be more creative, people.)
I also recycle food scraps and used coffee grounds, using them as fertilizer for my plants. The USB sticks I usually get from press conferences or publicists, I reuse to save my computer files, so the machine’s memory isn’t used up. Press releases printed on paper I tear into note pad sizes. However, I still don’t know what to do with the Mass cards and the plastic jackets given us when family members passed away. Are we supposed to store these as keepsakes forever?
There are so many things each of us can do to protect the environment for Earth to continue to sustain future generations. It starts with baby steps. Swearing off the use of plastic straws is the way forward.
Image credits: Stella Arnaldo