To just want plastic straws back!

What do you know about plastics to think it won't make a difference?

Banning single use plastics makes a massive difference, its part of an EU Directive.
I can see from your user name you must be Irish. In Ireland the best example was the levy introduceda more than 20 years ago with the supermarket plastic bags (single use flimsy ones). I saved tons of plastics and generated revenue for the Environment fund. It was hugely successful and changed the mentality of the population who now reuse bags (reusable ones) as a standard practice.

Plastic lids in milk bottles are now transparent to become recyclable. They are attached to the bottle to ensure they are recycled and won't generate microplastics. When you recycle plastic and dont dump it you are lowering the carbon footprint. All these measures will make a huge impact in the near future.
Maybe the only issue is that EU members plus UK have failed to communicate the importance of every single change in the new circular economy. But please try to read a bit about it. It's important to understand the importance of all these changes. Think about the success of the supermarket plastic bag levy. It only takes the change to become collective.

Wheat and pasta straws are a huge problem for allergies because restaurants aren’t disclosing them to customers as an allergen. You order a Coke thinking it’s fine and the straw sends you into anaphylactic shock.

The plastic wrapping (such as on crisps) has got so thin it is rendered useless.

Agree 100% with its resemblance to frog spawn, but I quite liked it all the same.

Yes my Ds used to like them simply unusable now

Bubble tea is awful through any straw. Like drinking frog spawn

Bubble tea places still do plastic straws. How are they getting away with it? Bubble tea through a paper straw would be awful.

I too miss plastic straws! I prefer paper wrappers though (on chocolate and such like) to plastic wrappers.

I hate soggy straws. A small restaurant we went to today actually had thick cardboard straws that didn't disintegrate. All the others are garbage.

Watch out for those metal straws...I read about a woman who died because she tripped while carrying a cup with a metal straw, fell onto the cup, and it pierced her eye. Bl*dy hll. Apart from the danger aspect, you also have to faff about with little brushes to clean metal (and possibly silicone) straws, or so I'm told.

I think they are designed to put us off buying plastic bottles completely! Bloody awful design.

What is the deal with the plastic bottle lids now attached to plastic bottles? I swear that up until recently, the instruction was to not put the lid in your recycling. I used to wash them out and give them to the school which recycled them. Never got the memo about screwing them back on the bottle and recycling the whole thing. If they just let people know, I am sure they wouldn't need to attach them.

I hate paper straws!
But, with the kids' Scout group we used to go and clean up rubbish from shorelines and mangroves, and the number one thing we'd pick up was plastic straws. Thousands of them every time. And the older they were, the more brittle they were and they'd start cracking apart and leaving bits of plastic everywhere that we just couldn't pick up. All the while the shorebirds were picking around this rubbish. It was very sad, and very confronting. I'd never have plastic straws back.

As much as I dislike wooden cutlery, I love those little chip forks.

It's better for our teeth to drink through a straw.

Metal straws are so incredibly dangerous to use with children

Could you get glass straws ? They come in a little case that you can carry in your handbag. Reusable and not paper.

Fishing nets are a far far bigger issue to plastic pollution/our oceans than a few plastic straws. We need to tackle the big issues like industrial fishing, not put a little plaster over the problem like paper straws.

We now have metal straws, because I much prefer drinking through a straw, even my hot drinks, but occasionally if I buy my children a drink carton, those straws break before they even pierce the foil. Useless.

YANBU. I was nearly reduced to tears by a Capri Sun today.

Could you do this with paper straws though?

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-straws-stuffed-in-the-mouth-(with-hands)

I think you might be confusing micro plastics pollution and global climate change. One has little impact on the other, no neither are desirable.

If you're that bothered, carry metal straws if you know you'll be having drinks?

Hate hate hate wooden cutlery. Cannot abide the texture. I keep a metal knife, fork and spoon at work. I used to carry a pair of chopsticks in my handbag to eat things like takeaway salads. Much easier than using a crap disposable fork. I got a very cheap and enormous pack of plastic straws from a pound shop years ago and we are still slowly working through them.

I keep silicon straws in my bag at all times. They’re brilliant.

Off topic I know, but I don’t get the obsession with takeaway coffees and coffees in caffs. My DH is always buying them, especially annoying when we have to leave early to catch a train, say, and he ‘just has time to grab a coffee’. But I realise I am in the minority here.

but I do dislike paper straws. I have a couple of metal ones at home.