By Jody Brown

It seems like it was just yesterday. You’d order your favorite iced drink from your local coffee shop, and you’d walk out with a ready-to-drink item. No second thoughts. No planning. It was just there: convenient.

Then one day in January you walk in, grab your drink, get out to your car, and realize there is something terribly wrong. How do I get this glorious beverage from cup to mouth? There’s no straw!

As of January 2020, businesses are no longer allowed to give out single-use plastic straws to customers unless verbally requested. We are not allowed to ask if you would like a straw. You must ask. There are no restrictions other than that. You ask – we hand you a straw.

As crazy as this may sound, this actually put a pretty big hiccup in our productivity. It’s extra steps, and it’s tough to embrace something that may be viewed as an annoyance. We love our customers. We know you, and we hate to make things less convenient for you. After all, we want every part of your experience in our shop to be pleasant and easy. That look of confusion when we hand you a straw-less drink is painful to us! Worse yet, what if you forget to ask? Your experience has just been tainted because your drink is now inconvenient to consume.

While we find the added step of waiting for our customers to ask – or not ask – inconvenient and uncomfortable, this does not mean we disagree with the premise of this new law. Humans are wasteful. Landfills are filling up at alarming rates. Our garbage is spilling over into areas and ecosystems that cannot withstand it. Animals and plants are not equipped to defend or protect themselves from our carelessness.

But I, personally, considered this law to be pointless as it first rolled out. According the a 2019 study by National Geographic, there are eight million tons of plastic flowing into our oceans every year. Single-use straws are 0.025 percent of that. So why are we focussing on straws? There was a heartbreaking video of a marine biologist removing a straw from a sea turtle’s nose – and now we are saving the turtles. But honestly – would a sea turtle rather run into a straw in the ocean or a disposable diaper? I couldn’t grasp why we were picking on this very small part of the problem. Also – it was directly affecting me and my business – so I had a professional stake in this.

So, without my consent, the law went into effect. And I noticed something pretty quickly. While straws are such a small part of the overall picture, I’ve seen a change in attitude. People are more mindful of waste. We hear more apologies from customers for not having a reusable straw. They are breaking out their reusable shopping bags and stainless steel straws as a badge of honor. This pointless law has put waste on the forefront of our minds.

And really – a straw is something we can do without, and it doesn’t ‘upset the apple cart’ too much. Talk to a parent of a toddler about a disposable diaper ban. That apple cart would be off the rails. But maybe there’s a new mom out there grabbing for their reusable straw thinking there are other ways to conserve. Maybe she’ll try cloth diapers (gross).

Regardless, we still hear arguments about this topic from both sides throughout our day. Some customers are very annoyed by this law, and we end up being the sounding board since we are implementing it. Others feel we aren’t doing enough and are annoyed that we even have plastic straws to offer when requested.

The thing is: We are not the moral police.

At The Atom, we do our best to have options available to you no matter which side of the debate you are on. We will give you the opportunity to act – or complain – or joke about saving turtles – or stand on your own platform. We graciously fill your reusable mugs or jars or cups. We have reusable straws and straw kits with cleaner brushes (Please clean your straws!!) for purchase. We have sipper lids instead of slotted straw lids for iced drinks if preferred. And, of course, we are happy to provide you with a straw when requested. You always have choices. We are just happy to see your smiling face when you walk in the door.

Remember to subscribe on our homepage to receive notifications of new posts.