I don't understand why people will get straws just to drink a f***ing water bottle!!!

might be a dumb question, but how do they go from being in my cup to being put in a waste basket to being in the water? Surely people aren't so thoughtless as to just drop their waste into the ocean! How does it happen?

The only solution is to not use them. As for paper straws, NPR’s All Things Considered did a piece on straws. As it turns out there is a US manufacturer of high quality paper straws that are a great match for a plastic straw but due to the rather sudden increase in demand, they’re having a hard time keeping up with production. Apparently they are a little more expensive than plastic, but not by a cent or two more if I remember corrrectly. There are a lot of cheap paper straws made in China and elsewhere that don’t hold up well.
If you happen to be interested in that latest craze of mixing paints in a cup and placing a canvas on top of the cup then turning the whole thing over to make a cell painting of various colors, used plastic straws can come in handy for dispersing the paint over the entire canvas by blowing through them to move the paint around. The effect is quite interesting and a google search can show you the how to. Other than that, I can do without a straw. If I wanted one, I’d purchase the glass one. Let’s face it, any little bit we can do to help the planet is well worth it.

Done!

If plastic straws use so much energy and resources, why are they so much cheaper than paper straws that do not work as well? Also, why not ban littering by all those people who live on the coasts? I solved the problem by not buying beverages at fast food restaurants..