Writing: Explanation: Should New Zealand Ban Plastic Straws?

Plastic straws, tubes of simplicity and convenience. An easier way to consume your favourite drink, and the supposed killer of this world. Think about a time you were at the beach, playing in the water and fighting off seagulls for your hot chips. You whip out a can of Coke, and you are one of two people. You either drink it cold out of the can, or you grab a nearby plastic straw of heaven and use that instead. If you are the latter then you need to make a choice. Do the right thing and put it in the bin, or drop it by the shore because the bin looks like it is a million miles away?

This is a problem we all face one day in our lives. Although the question still goes, should we just get rid of plastic straws. I’m just gonna let you know… we shouldn’t. Plastic straws are convenient, and are much better than their paper straw counterpart. Paper straws get soggy in matter of 0.01 milliseconds, they cost more money and time to manufacture, and half the time when you’re using one it breaks down and bits of paper make it to your mouth along with your drink! It ruins the experience, and that just defeats the purpose of having a drink. Although you might ask “Well if paper fails, why not use bamboo, as the shape is already a cylinder and it can break down?” Well might I add that bamboo straws would need to be thoroughly cleaned, and that bamboo can still have small twigs on its side.

Would you like to buy a bag of bamboo straws, and see bumps on the side due to there being twigs that were just snapped off? It is time consuming to make, unappealing, and if you are not using plastic straws as they “Harm the environment”, then why would you use paper straws which if you don’t know come from trees! Or bamboo straws which has bamboo literally in the name? At this point the argument of banning plastic straws is just going in circles with one upside plummeting into a fault. If plastic straws were banned, then nothing will change as they are the least of our worries when it comes to “Pollution” and “Saving the environment.” Plastic straws are a lifesaver! They don’t require us to tilt our heads back as if we snapped them just to take a sip of a drink, if you are sensitive to cold temperatures you don’t need to hold the can, and finally if you do want to use plastic straws, they are one of the cheapest things you can buy.

So this is why plastic straws shouldn’t be banned from New Zealand. They do wonders if you want a cold drink. If you think it’s bad that straws are getting stuck in the noses of turtles, then don’t drop them by the beach. So think about it… Do you really want to ban plastic straws?