This past week Senate File 756 was introduced in the Minnesota State Senate which makes the unrequested distribution of plastic straws by places of accomodation a petty misdemeanor. The passage of this legislation would be a significant affront to the rights of Minnesotans living with Disabilities.
Over the past few years, the environmentalist lobby has made a lot of progress with accomplishments such as the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. Now, they are faced with the current political climate and the current occupant of the white house and are continuing to take matters into their own hands and advocate for cutting pollution like plastic waste, but thier ignoring the unintended consequences of doing so including in regards to Plastic Straw bans which in part came about due to a viral video of a Sea turtle that was injured by one.
While, protecting our natural resources is important the people who are advancing straw bans are severely misguided. In their shortsighted rush to ban plastic straws, they have missed two critical facts.
First, according to a study published in Marine Policy, straws account for less than 0.03 percent by weight of plastic pollution entering the oceans every year, so the straw ban is symbolic at best.
Secondly, it's a quality of life issue for individuals with disablities. Able-bodied people see straws as ubiquitous and they don't think about how essential these simple devices are for anyone with a disability. Without straws, it's impossible for millions of disabled people to go anywhere without worrying being able to drink, become dehydrated, spilling their drink everywhere or aspirating it into their lungs. Individuals with Autism also expirience oral sensory problems that often are allievated by the use of a straw.
Where able-bodied people see waste, my community sees a simple device that opens up the world to people with disabilities.
Proponents of the bans will suggest that we use alternatives to plastic straws, such as paper, metal, glass or biodegradable straws, but all of those options have major drawbacks for people with disabilities. For example, metal straws are unusable for people with tremors or sensory issues. Paper straws do not work because they often disintegrate before an individual can finish and they don't handle heat well. Straws made of sugarcane are problematic for diabetics.
Others have suggested that we carry around straws, instead of getting them from resteraunts but that has problems of its own because it's another expense for disabled people, who are already likely to have to suffer lower income and extremely high medical costs. Futhermore, there's no way for those straws to be kept sanitary.
The Authors argue that the bill language doesn't actually explicitly ban straws but it and that one can request a straw or establishments can use any sort of other straw but buisness owners aren't going to buy paper straws for some people and plastic straws for others. Thier going to get one or the other because of the economic advantages. If plastic straws are more heavily regulated which one do you think they're going to buy? I recently saw this scenario play out in a discussion with Pizza Luce over straws.
The burden of reducing plastic waste by a measly 0.03 percent should not fall on disabled people, who already face barriers to participating in the daily activities in their prospective communities. Yes, we should reduce pollution, but it is unethical to force already marginalized groups to pay the price. We need to search for alternative enviromentally friendly solutions because blanket plastic straw bans are irresponsible, unneccesary, unreasonable and immoral.
