At least three restaurants in Terrace are significantly reducing their use of plastic straws in favour of biodegradable options as federal conversations continue around a national strategy to reduce single-use plastics in Canada.
Cindy Palmer, owner of Blue Fin Sushi Bar, announced in March that the restaurant would no longer offer plastic straws to their customers unless specifically requested. The move started around Palmer’s own concerns for preserving marine life in ocean waters after she saw a video online of a turtle with a painful 10 cm plastic straw stuck in its nostril.
“It’s just destroying our sea life, and if we don’t do something about it now we aren’t going to have any sea life in the future,” Palmer said. “This is a step towards preserving that.”
In addition, Palmer said the restaurant will also stop using plastic wrapped chopsticks and plastic green grass commonly seen as a decoration for sushi and sashimi rolls. She will be looking at alternative bagging as well.
“Anywhere that I’m able to get rid of single-use plastics,” Palmer said.
Researchers estimate as much as eight million tonnes of plastic ends up in the world’s oceans each year. That figure could increase 10 times by 2025 without improvements to waste management infrastructure, according to a 2015 study published in the magazine Science.
Palmer said the switch was easy and didn’t take a lot of administrative work to implement.
A poster in Palmer’s restaurant explains the reason behind the discontinued use of these plastics, stating that plastic straws take 200 years to break down into tiny particles. While straws will not be served with the drinks, they are not banned in the restaurant altogether.
“There are a few people that still request straws, and that’s okay, we have them available… but otherwise, people are really receptive and think it’s a great idea,” Palmer said.
Mumford’s Beerhouse and Grill in Terrace was the first to discontinue their use of plastic straws in January and was able to cut their use down from 600 a week to just 12, according to a written post on Facebook.
Through conversations and social media, Mumford restaurant owner Tyson Hull challenged 15 other restaurants in Terrace to take a look at how many plastic straws they use on a daily basis and consider getting on board. So far, the Blue Fin Sushi Bar and the Hot House restaurant told Hull in March that they would follow the initiative by saying goodbye to plastic straws.
“Our goal is to get every restaurant in northern BC on board,” Hull said over the phone.
“I always make a point of mentioning to other restaurants that the first straw that they put in a drink 40-years ago is still sitting around in the landfill.”
Plastic straws and stir sticks make up about three per cent of shoreline litter in Vancouver, while Canadians throw out about 57 million straws every day, according to the city of Vancouver’s recent single-use item reduction strategy proposed this year.
In Canada, the decision to discontinue single-use plastics of any kind has largely been left up to municipalities.
During Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s visit to England last week, British Prime Minister Theresa May said her government is banning single-use plastics with the aim of eradicating avoidable waste by 2042. She asked Canada to follow suit. Trudeau didn’t commit to any similar national plan of action, but reporters in London he looks forward to gathering with other G7 leaders to discuss this issue.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change said that “work is underway to advance the G7 commitment to take action on plastics and marine litter through the form of a G7 Plastics Charter.”
But any meaningful change must take place at the local level, said Hull.
“Enough is enough. Without the consumer willing to change, nothing is going to change,” he said.
“I’m doing this for my daughter, I don’t care about the business side of it. I don’t want my daughter to have to swim in freshwater lakes or surf in an ocean that’s filled with plastic.”
Terrace diner Dori Olson said she was happy to see the poster on display at Blue Fin Sushi.
“I think it’s great,” Olson said as she sat down to eat lunch with family members. “I don’t want a straw, and I don’t need a straw.”
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