Take the “Skip the Straw” Pledge

From PennEnvironment (http://www.pennenvironment.org):

National Skip the Straw Day was February 22. At PennEnvironment, we’re celebrating with a pledge to say “no” to single-use plastic products we don’t need, starting with the humble plastic drinking straw.

Every individual straw may be small, but straws — and other single-use plastic products — have an outsized impact on the environment. That’s why we’re skipping the straw this Friday — and why we think every day should be Skip the Straw Day.

Will you take the pledge to skip the straw at https://pennenvironment.webaction.org/p/dia/action4/common/public/?action_KEY=30904, and commit to reducing the amount of single-use plastic in your daily life?

You probably won’t use any individual plastic straw for more than a couple of minutes, but once you throw it away, it will stay in the environment for decades, if not centuries. Some plastic products take 450 years to completely break down — and some may never disappear at all.¹

Instead, plastics just break into smaller and smaller pieces. That’s bad news for birds, turtles, whales and other ocean wildlife who can then mistake garbage for food. Last year, a sperm whale washed ashore with over 1,000 pieces of plastic in its stomach.²

More than 8 million metric tons of plastic flow into the ocean every year.³ Plastic straws may be convenient, but the planet just can’t afford any more disposable plastic “stuff” entering the environment. If you can, quitting straws is a great place to start.

Participate belatedly in National Skip the Straw day this year by pledging to say “no” to plastic straws.

As individuals, we can’t solve the problem of plastic waste on our own. But each action makes a difference — by dumping less waste on the planet AND by making bolder changes possible. Whether you swap your plastic straw for a renewable or reusable alternative, or just decide to go without, your choice to cut back on plastic use is important.

Join PennEnvironment and our friends at U.S. PIRG in taking this step towards a future free of plastic pollution. Take the pledge: Say “no” to plastic straws, and commit to reduce your use of single use plastic.

1. Laura Parker, “We Made Plastic. We Depend On It. Now We’re Drowning In It,” National Geographic, June 2018.
2. Trevor Nace, “Yet Another Dead Whale Found With Pounds Of Plastic In Its Stomach,” Forbes, November 26, 2018.
3. Jenna Jambeck, et al., “Plastic Waste Inputs from Land into the Ocean,” Science, February 12, 2015.