Trump Signs Trivial Executive Order To Oust Paper Straw Usage | EUROtoday

President Donald Trump signed an govt order on Monday geared toward rolling again the federal push for using paper straws over plastic ones.

“We’re going back to plastic straws,” Trump stated when signing the order, claiming that paper straws merely “don’t work.”

“On occasion, [paper straws] break. They explode. If something’s hot, they don’t last very long — like a matter of minutes, sometimes a matter of seconds. It’s a ridiculous situation so we’re going back to plastic straws,” he added. (Paper straws are usually not recognized to blow up.)

Trump has disliked what he refers to as “liberal paper straws” since no less than 2019, when he launched his personal model of plastic straws.

“I do think we have bigger problems than plastic straws,” Trump stated in 2019. “You have a little straw, but what about the plates, the wrappers and everything else that are much bigger and they’re made of the same material?”

Trump’s order reverses former President Joe Biden’s administration’s effort to utterly part out single-use plastic, together with plastic straws, in federal operations by 2035. The transfer fell in step with Biden’s govt order on Catalyzing Clean Energy Industries and Jobs by way of Federal Sustainability.

The United Nations Environment Program estimates that people produce 430 million metric tons of plastic per yr — and simply 9% of that’s efficiently recycled. What’s extra is that plastic, not like paper, can take centuries to decompose.

“Plastic pollution can alter habitats and natural processes, reducing ecosystems’ ability to adapt to climate change, directly affecting millions of people’s livelihoods, food production capabilities and social well-being,” a web page on the UNEP web site states.

Christy Leavitt, the plastics marketing campaign director for environmental group Oceana, instructed US News that Trump is “moving in the wrong direction on single-use plastics.”

“The world is facing a plastic pollution crisis, and we can no longer ignore one of the biggest environmental threats facing our oceans and our planet today,” she stated.