How can people still not know? In January of 2019, the government of Costa Rica officially banned the use of plastic straws.
Now it’s 2024. On January 13, 2024 I was walking down the street in Cahuita and passed a street vendor selling cold coconut water (pipa). It was midday, and maybe I looked thirsty. “Pipa?” he said, and handed me one – with a plastic straw already stuck into the hole.
The only reason why I bought it was because the plastic straw was already there.
“Plastic straws were banned, years ago,” I told him. “Didn’t you know?”
He looked at me with a blank stare that answered my question. Plastic? What is that? Banned, what is that? Why?
I told him, “Plastic straws are bad for the environment. They get thrown away on the beach, and they get into the ocean. Plastic kills animals and fish. The government knows this, and that’s why plastic straws – and plastic bags, too, and single-use plastic – has been banned. We have to stop using it.”
I added, “I don’t want to use the plastic straw. You need to start asking people first if they want a straw, before you use one.”
“Then give it to me,” he said.
“What will you do with it?”
“I’ll put it here, with the garbage, and throw it away.”
The man clearly wasn’t getting the message.
“You’ll throw it in the garbage? Where does the garbage go? It will go into the ocean.”
He looked at me like he’d never had that thought before in his life: ‘Where does garbage go.’
“Then what should I do? I have to use the straws.” he said.
“No you don’t: You can buy the biodegradable ones. The green ones. Look for them next time.”
I could tell he’d never heard of BIODEGRADABLE before, either.
I walked away with the pipa, with the plastic straw – I have a stash of them in my kitchen, to use again for something or just to prevent from getting tossed into the garbage.
And I wondered, How could so many people, in 2024, still be completely ignorant of the problem of plastic waste?
Whose fault is this?
The schools? The parents, for not modeling responsible behavior in the home? Or is it the government’s fault for not bothering to enforce the policies it tells the news it has created? The hypocrisy of it all. Is it laziness? Willful ignorance? The poisonous doctrine of Fake News?
Or is it an utter absence of critical thinking skills, of the skill of reflection; cause and effect: ‘When I do this, that happens’?
And whose fault is it that this cycle of ignorance continues?
I could have just walked away from that pipa vendor. I could have just taken the pipa with the straw, not said anything.
But instead, I made a deliberate choice. I interacted with someone, I gave him something to think about. I took personal responsibility for finding a way not to create more plastic waste: the straw stops here.
Next step? Go to the distributors, the places where vendors buy things, and hold them accountable: “You know that your government has passed a law banning single use plastic? Plastic straws were banned by the government in 2019: this is 2024. I could get you in trouble for selling something that is now illegal…but instead, I want to help you think about what you are doing.”
In 2020 I had this same conversation with another vendor, a woman at a smoothie shop. When I asked her why she was still using plastic straws, she apologized. She knew, but she had a capitalistic reason for ignoring the ban: “I bought a big supply just before the ban and I need to use them before I buy the biodegradable ones.” She was planning to start using the green straws when the plastic ones were gone.
But do we have time?
What the government could do, as the US government has done in the cases of rebates for gas lawn mowers and old cars, is to take back plastic products and give out vouchers for the purchase of green alternatives.
I did this, way back in 2008. The rebate I received for turning in my gas-powered lawn mower was almost enough to purchase a rotary grass cutter, the same kind I had used as a child.
We think we still have time; that the wasteful and toxic lifestyle habits we refuse to adjust just a little bit – like using no straws in our drinks instead of plastic straws – don’t really make a difference. But it’s January, 2024, and the world is on fire. Just look.
