It seems like a large group of my pals are jumping on the anti-straw bandwagon as it is the virtue-signaling flavor of the week for people that spend entirely too much of their lives on social media. I'm not claiming innocence, i spend quite a lot of time on there myself. However, this latest campaign against evil straws is just a bit absurd.

I don't know exactly how it got started, I am sure Starbucks, in their constant pursuit to sabotage their own business had something to do with it. They decided, in a virtue signaling effort for the ages, that they were no longer going to have their usual plastic tops and straws but instead convert to a "sippy cup" thing instead.

Environmentalists applauded Starbucks vision for a greener future but guess what the sippy cup tops are made of? You guessed it: Plastic. As a matter of fact, there is actually MORE plastic involved in the new lids than their classic plastic cup / straw combo. Starbucks claims that this is still a success because the new lids are easier to recycle.... come on guys, who are you kidding - that isn't going to happen and you know it.

So perhaps that got the virtue-signalling ball rolling as everyone frantically takes "look at me" photos of them refusing a straw at a restaurant and just drinking out of the glass. A choice that they really should have been making for years before now but didn't because it wasn't Instagram-worthy.

It was funny to watch the news channels cite a statistic about how Americans use 500 million straws a day! but as it turns out this statistic was created by a 9-year old kid who estimated this number based on 3 phone calls he made to 3 straw manufacturers. The actual figure is around 125 million, which is still a crazy number but I think maybe the news stations should start to look in the mirror and realize why nobody trusts them anymore.

I'm all about doing what we can for the environment, but this straw thing is a load of crap in the grand scheme of things. Some actual scientists who aren't in elementary school compiled data over the course of many months of research to discover that there are currently 8.3 billion plastic straws that are in danger of entering the water system of the world - that is a scary number indeed... however, they determined that if we were to INTENTIONALLY throw them into the ocean this would only account for .03% of the overall plastic waste in the ocean.

I'm not saying that we should do nothing - i live in a country that has some of the most irresponsible plastic use in the world. I refuse straws at 7-11 because i don't need them, i also refuse plastic bags for the most part because i also don't need them. However, if i find myself in a situation where i want or need a friggin straw or plastic bag you better believe I am going to get one.

This latest media panic over straws is a waste of time. The people who are jumping on board this are either ignorant, or deliberately deceitful. If you really want to make a difference, how about identifying something that is a larger part of the problem then a mere .03%

Furthermore, a vast majority of the world's plastic waste is introduced to the ocean by a mere 5 countries. China, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Since this is the case, why are straws being banned in Los Angeles and Vancouver? If you don't think it is because some politician is trying to score points with people easily fooled, well, i don't know what to tell you because that is what it is.

I think the world has gone completely insane. We have a problem with plastic waste, this is undeniable. But what does the media immediately latch on to? The absolutely smallest portion of what the problem is in a part of the world that doesn't actually contribute to the problem in a meaningful capacity.

This next one is false but that doesn't make it not funny

I don't normally get political at all but since my FB feed and IG is completely inundated with "look at me" eye-rolling moments, i had to say something.