this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2025
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The attack on single use straws was entirely symbolic (end completely useless) in the first place, and harmful for disabled people.
The problem was never straws, it was, and is, capitalism.
Focus on that, don't get drawn in to the superficial virtue signalling divisive and harmful distractions.
It's a smaller battle, part of the larger war on plastic.
I see trash these days, and I can ignore much more of it because its biodegradable.
I'm picking up shit less. I see this as a win.
And the disabled people who have lost access don't.
For the sake of an item that constituted 0.003% of ocean plastics, and giving you a "win" you're further supporting the exclusion and marginalisation of disabled people.
Banning plastic straws did less than nothing to improve the environment (less than, because it made people like you think they've done their part, and focus less on the actual problem), and worse, it sprung up an entire multi billion dollar industry that makes and sells reusable straws that end up in landfill just as often, and will be staying there for significantly longer.
You getting a dopamine hit doesn't make something good or right.
I'm not disputing your claim, but can you help me understand how paper straws are less usable/more hostile to people with disabilities? I'm struggling to see how the material choice would impact accessibility, but it seems like you have a pretty clear impact in mind
And I'm not trying to be an ass, but in the same way I've just had to look up "paper straws unsuitable for disabled people" to provide you with the answer, you could have just done so yourself and come across one of tens of thousand of articles, videos, podcasts, and images addressing this specific topic.
https://www.eater.com/2018/7/19/17586742/plastic-straw-ban-disabilities
https://creakyjoints.org/advocacy/plastic-straw-bans-bad-for-people-with-disabilities/
https://www.a-zine.net/blog/2018/7/31/straws-are-not-the-issue
http://web.archive.org/web/20240703214002/https://nypost.com/2018/07/02/banning-plastic-straws-is-more-scam-than-science/
https://inbedwithfridakahlo.wordpress.com/2018/07/12/banning-plastic-straws-the-strawman-of-strawmen/
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/09/disabled-person-plastic-straws-baby-wipes
TL;DR:
(ID: 2 tables breaking down why each type of alternative straw might be unsuitable for different disabled people. If someone needs a more in depth description, please ask)
E: just for context
(ID: image of an old informational leaflet detailing the medical and accessibility benefits of single use bendy straws, which were invented for that specific use in the first place)
"just Google it" in this case is a bit rough, an able bodied person is not going to recognise actual advocacy sources vs industry publications
Astroturfing and SEO are making search engines useless also.
Na, it's perfectly reasonable to expect people who claim to care and genuinely want to know, to make a minimal effort.
"I tried looking it up but couldn't find an answer, do you mind helping me out"? Sure, no issue here, wouldn't have even mentioned it. But to drop in to a conversation without knowing anything about the topic, and expect disabled (or otherwise marginalised) people who are personally impacted (and therefore constantly having to have the same emotionally laborious conversations over and over and over) to do the work for you before you've even tried? That's going to get (seriously fucking gently) called out every time.
I have the same poor quality search engines at my disposal, and have to sift through similar results.
There is also an easy way to recognise actual advocacy sources vs industry publications - is a disabled person writing from their personal experience? Advocacy. Is the article written by someone who isn't personally impacted? Irrelevant. Simple.
E: The fact that I went ahead and did the work for them anyway despite all of that (with, again, the gentlest of reminders that they could be doing it themselves), and people still find a way to complain about how supposedly unaccommodating I'm being is fucking wild..
That's fair.
For the astroturfing thing, profiles and engagement is faked on social media right now. I'm trying to find the news source, there was some think tank a while back that had a completely made up persona as CEO or something.
https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2024/02/01/fake-people-ruining-the-real-world-finance-might-have-an-ai-problem/
With regard to the astroturfing, are you saying that the sources people might find are AI? Sure, that's definitely a thing that is happening, but I'm not sure what I'm meant to do about that? I'm no better than the next person at recognising AI and would need to read through and make a call just like anyone else (and then we open a whole other can of worms of rating the writing and or expression levels, and potential use of assistive tools of, especially in this case, fellow disabled people, which can become really problematic, really fast).
Like I say, I'm perfectly happy to help, especially those who have shown even a bit of initiative, but there's only so much I can do, and really, the burden shouldn't be falling on us to not only educate those with more privilege, but also become expert at deciphering AI use (and within that, legitimate vs intentionally manipulative).
I trust a person I'm having a coherent conversation with more than search results. Presumably, when you are speaking about these things you have first hand knowledge of reputable people and organisations.
I agree that saddling random people with the responsibility of educating people is not good, but I don't see what can be done while we have this I guess... Credibility crisis? Or something?
And also, the burden of the constant demand to teach people about your lived experience, even though thousands of others who share it have already wilfully taken the time to document it extensively. We're not talking about individual experiences, but about well establish and deep rooted systemic oppression.
At the end of the day, expecting marginalised people, especially random ones you "happen upon" (would they even be asking if I wasn't here?), to be the ones constantly doing the work is an unearned entitlement that comes with privilege, and what those with that privilege should be doing instead is using it to lessen the burden on marginalised people, not increase it. Step one is learning to invest their own time and energy instead of demanding or even just expecting it from others.
100%
The thing though is they replaced polluting single use straws with less polluting single use straws.
If they actually wanted to do something useful it would have been nice to have multi-use straws ie. metal/wood/or even hardened plastic.
But I guess that wouldn’t be as suitable a source of income, and wouldn’t fit well with american consumerism and fast food culture, so here we are debating on the best type of single use straws.
As you said, the base problem comes from capitalism.
Single use straws only ever constituted 0.003% of ocean plastics, they were already less polluting than pretty much any other plastic in use today, and the alternatives are not suitable for many disabled people for many different reasons. The ban also removed accessibility, and put the burden on disabled people (and on retail staff to gatekeep us, which more often than not resulted in service being denied).
They did, they literally created an entire multi billion dollar industry to make money off of the problem they created, and the virtue signalers flocked to buy reusable straws, which again, are not suitable for many disabled people who depend on single use bendy straws for literal survival.
It is, stop getting distracted by the bullshit capitalists tell you so that they can sell you more shit.