Over the last decade, the use of single-use plastic straws has been a constant topic of debate. Although this issue has been pushed to the background of environmental concerns amidst records of high global carbon emissions, President Donald Trump’s recent and controversial call to go “back to plastic” has ignited a re-examination of this topic.
Following China, the USA is one of the world’s largest producers and consumers of plastic. According to Statista, North America produces 18% of the world’s plastic. According to a report by National Academics, the USA produces over 42 million metric tonnes of plastic waste a year. Recycling infrastructure in the USA cannot handle this, managing to recycle a meagre 5–9% of plastics a year. President Biden recognised both the global plastic crisis and the role his government must play in being the largest consumer. The Biden administration aimed to phase out single-use plastics for various business sectors by 2027 and from federal agencies by 2035. This alone could have significantly impacted actualised progress and global signalling of greater action; unfortunately, Biden pressed this matter too late into his presidency, mere months before the 2024 election.
Trump has a terrible environmental policy reputation, further solidified by his attitudes towards single-use plastics. Plastic straws are now as much a symbol of Trump’s greater disregard for conscious environmental policy, as they are a symbol of pollution for climate activists. Trump’s first term saw the immediate reversal of the Obama-backed reduction of plastic bottles in National Parks. It is not a surprise that Trump has already denounced the “irrational campaign against plastic straws”. Trump is now encouraging not just a return of plastic straws but also is pushing a ban on paper ones with an executive order aiming to “eliminate the procurement of paper straws...”, citing them to be “nonfunctional, use chemicals that may carry risks to human health, are more expensive to produce than plastic straws, and often force users to use multiple straws”.
Although the environmentalist urge is to disregard what Trump says, is there some truth to his claims? Paper straws’ primary and most obvious benefit is their shorter life cycle—taking just 2–3 weeks to degrade, while plastics take two-hundred years. However, paper straws require double the energy to produce and emit twice as much carbon dioxide. Add tionally, research may show paper straws contain harmful chemicals like PFAs, which raise health concerns and might increase the time they take to biodegrade. Furthermore, they are less durable and some disability groups argue that they do not help those with strength or mobility issues to the same degree that plastic straws do.
While Trump’s claims are not entirely false, the speed of his ban is still cause for alarm. There is no suggestion of reducing overall plastic consumption, nor any allusion to stricter regulation on significant polluters, such as the fishing industry. Considering Trump’s previous environmental policy positions, this ban may be more a result of lobbying by plastic producers than a serious engagement with ecological issues. There is no clear answer to the complicated question of single-use plastics, but Trump’s presidency is not signalling a promising future for the environment, neither within the US nor globally.