Environment America and U.S. PIRG celebrate Skip the Straw Day by introducing bills in seven states to help Americans go strawless

Environment America and U.S. PIRG are working in seven states to introduce legislation requiring customers to request disposable plastic straws. The announcement comes on the third annual National Skip the Straw Day.

“Every day should be ‘Skip the Straw Day,’” said Steve Blackledge, senior conservation director for Environment America. “Nothing we use for five minutes should threaten our environment for hundreds of years.”

Two years ago, innovative students and their adviser at Whitehall Middle School in Michigan developed the idea of “Skip the Straw Day” to encourage consumers to forgo one of the most common forms of plastic pollution contaminating our waterways.

Every year, about eight million tons of plastic escape into the environment and eventually the ocean. Plastic does not biodegrade, so scientists have found fragments in hundreds of species, including 44 percent of seabird species, 43 percent of marine mammal species and every species of sea turtle. Ingesting these fragments is often fatal, because animals can starve when they ingest too much plastic they can’t digest.

CONTINUE ON www.environmentamerica.org