News Disney removing plastic straws and more by mid-2019

[Nubs70]

Just to make sure I am understanding this new environmental crusade.

The genesis of this movement is rooted in a 3rd grade science project????

 

[the.dreamfinder]

Just to make sure I am understanding this new environmental crusade.

The genesis of this movement is rooted in a 3rd grade science project????

Yes.

 

[larryz]

Have they limited how much water you can use while taking a shower in the hotel room... let me know when they do that then I'll be impressed.

This thing. It only spits out about a quart a minute, but at such velocities that it'll rip your skin off if you stay in any longer than 4 minutes.

 

[EricsBiscuit]

I'm fine with WDW choosing not to use plastic straws and I have no issues with paper straws. The no lid is always annoying at DAK but I can live with it. I'm okay with people and companies individually choosing not to use plastic straws. But where I draw the line is when the government steps in and says you can't use a straw.

 

[Gitson Shiggles]

This thing. It only spits out about a quart a minute, but at such velocities that it'll rip your skin off if you stay in any longer than 4 minutes.

 

[AEfx]

Paper biodegrades, it does not hurt wild life, Mild inconvenience compared to the bigger picture of something lasting for hundreds of years on the planet destined to either eat or entangle things. I suppose they moved away form paper straws decades ago at their parks unless requested. No lids either. But proof that Sea World were the real big movers of that education.

Also, the amount of water consumed through straw vs cup is not what is going to keep people from being dehydrated, it will be WHAT is consumed. That is a choice. That is also a silly fact to say it is "easier to drink out of a straw then a cup" that in itself is not a fact. That is an opinion statement. But besides that, the former point remains.

Yes, thank you - I am well aware of the supposed reasoning why they do this. And I don't know what you are talking about when it comes to dehydration - I mentioned nothing of the sort. You apparently are mixing me up with someone else - I didn't argue about what was easier to drink out of or what have you.

In any case, like I said - I am not complaining about it, I just don't like gross paper straws, so I'll happily throw a few in my backpack from off-site and use them when I'm in the parks. No biggie.

 

[Lensman]

The whole plastic straw deal (I think it was 500M/day just for the USA which doesn’t make sense unless every American is using 1.5 straws every single day). It’s rare when I see straws. Maybe in a milkshake but most people drink from plastic bottles and use more than one of those a day which would seem like a greater impact but, no, lets concentrate on straws.

This statistic keeps getting bandied about. I am by no means claiming my behavior as universal, but nobody in my family averages one straw a day, let alone more than one. What are you people drinking?

From where I sit, empirical evidence says that "fact" is made up, just like 76% of all statistics quoted on the internet.

I live in a whole house full of people who might use one straw, each, in a month.

I can assure you that many people do not use a straw a day. They just don't work well with beer...

I take it all of you are asking how many straws are used in the U.S. every year, right? Here's what I said earlier in the thread:

The food service research firm Technomic estimates are that the food service industry uses 170 million straws per day.

The market research firm Freedonia Group estimates that the U.S. uses 390 million straws per day.

The Foodservice Packaging Institute estimates usage at 250 million straws per day.

I feel it is my obligation to the community to provide data instead of just rhetoric.

I estimated that McDonald's alone dispenses 20 million straws a day in the U.S.

Less polluting fireworks!??!?! That's like saying the Army is shooting with less killing guns.

The DoD is actually pursuing an incredible number of projects related to renewable energy, mostly ones that help our forces remain energy independent in the field to reduce their diesel supply pipeline, but also projects to power our bases using solar with storage. This ends up being cost-effective for them because it achieves their need for redundant backup power. (The solar is actually primary with the grid being the backup.) An added plus is that bases can remain fully operational indefinitely - even through a zombie apocalypse.

Note: I see a lot of people using the Perfect Solution Fallacy - "a false dichotomy that occurs when an argument assumes that a perfect solution to a problem exists; and that a proposed solution should be rejected because some part of the problem would still exist after it were implemented." I recommend against us using fallacious arguments on this fine forum!

The solar farms are to keep the envioronmentalists off their back but they don't even make a dent in the overall carbon footprint and electrical usage of ALL of the Parks, Hotels and establishments on Disney properties. They would need a solar farm that is bigger than Walt Disney World in toto to balance out the electrical usage.

That's what they say, but where are the actual figures. And if it is actually 10%...it's nothing because that means that 90% of their electricity is creating a huge carbon footprint.

According to this Disney blog entry, the two RCID solar farms will "provide up to 25 percent of the power needs at Walt Disney World Resort." That seems a pretty big dent to me. BTW, the "up to 25 percent" probably refers to during mid-day in the Spring and Fall. The 10% figure quoted earlier in the thread is the overall average number. It's hard to get higher than 50% solar usage without storage, but they will need to figure out something because they've also committed to "deliver its 2020 goal of reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by 50% compared to 2012."

The Skyliner is limited in its capacity and STILL uses electricity. ....as does the monorail system.
And their buses STILL use diesel fuel as do the shuttles in the parking lot.

Disney is an environmental disaster.....but at least they are banning plastic straws.

I refer you back to where they've committed to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2020. They're at least committed to change.

Think about the environmental impact of obtaining rare earth elements for the devices people use to proclaim how great it is that Disney is doing something about plastic straws.

What does that have to do with the straw problem?

I don't know if I'm totally convinced of the need to solve the straw problem, but if it's easy enough to solve I'm willing to give it a try.

Regarding the paper bag vs plastic bag issue, my recollection is that stores switched from paper to plastic to save money, not because of any environmental concern. That plus the fact that city dwellers preferred plastic because they have handles. Why do people think that we switched to plastic due to environmental concerns?

 

[LittleBuford]

Neither do rocks. Plastic can be incinerated but if they get stuck in a landfill, what's the big deal? It doesn't "harm" the environment buried under layers of dirt and other garbage. We won't run out of room for landfills for thousands of years, if ever.

The exploding world population (starting in the 1930's) is a MUCH bigger threat to the health of the earth and the balance of the environment than plastic straws and plastic bags.

And can burrow out of a landfill, roll to the nearest flowing body of water, and migrate to the sea.

It's like a Land Salmon

Rocks aren’t man-made.

Even if every plastic drinking straw ended up in landfill (which, as others have pointed out, just doesn’t happen), they would still be having an impact on the environment by contributing to the landfill problem itself (Google “landfill environmental impacts” if you need specifics). As for incineration, there is no completely pollution-free way of burning plastic.

 

[King Racoon 77]

Up in NY they already have a ban on plastic bags in several counties. If you want one or more, you pay 5 cents. If you go to the warehouse stores like Costco and BJ's Wholesale Club, they have no bags (plastic or paper) either. Also, Ikea hasn't had bags for years.

You should see the size of the plastic bag they used to use for their wardrobes

 

[King Racoon 77]

We've used the Disney plastic bags to organize our extras from that trip: maps, schedules, tour books, etc. Any extra bags, we end up recycling, like we do when the grocery bags count reaches a certain point. Sadly, this is another of those issues which is PC, yet does diddly squat for the environment. The big problem is dumping things in the ocean, and the USA has not allowed that for decades.

Selling resuable bags? Fine, but not all that workable at Disney. It's one thing to bring reusable canvas bags on a planned grocery run, but quite another to lug reusable bags all over WDW.

I take a re-usable bag to Disney and take it to every park. It isn't at all difficult to do it.

Spoiler: here ya go

 

[Nubs70]

Rocks aren’t man-mad.

Even if every plastic drinking straw ended up in landfill (which, as others have pointed out, just doesn’t happen), they would still be having an impact on the environment by contributing to the landfill problem itself (Google “landfill environmental impacts” if you need specifics). As for incineration, there is no completely pollution-free way of burning plastic.

Please enlighten me to the migration pattern of the North American Drinking Straw. How can a straw make it.from central Kansas to th Pacific.Ocean?

My 4th grader has had a tracking collar on a straw in the backyard for a year and it hasn't moved an inch. Maybe it will? We shall see. He is going to biblically disclose.his research.at ths falls Grade 4 Science Fair.

 

[LittleBuford]

Please enlighten me to the migration pattern of the North American Drinking Straw. How can a straw make it.from central Kansas to th Pacific.Ocean?

My 4th grader has had a tracking collar on a straw in the backyard for a year and it hasn't moved an inch. Maybe it will? We shall see. He is going to biblically disclose.his research.at ths falls Grade 4 Science Fair.

Read what I wrote again. I spoke about the environmental impact of landfills themselves. I said nothing about things travelling out to sea. The environment encompasses more than just the oceans.

 

[Gelatoni]

So disney is gonna get rid of straws and shopping bags but they're gonna start giving them out on splash mountain from ziploc....

 

[Mathew h]

As a person who bites my straw...paper straws just don't work for me because they get all soggy. Maybe they should focus on bigger items and not the smallest item of plastic. This also makes me feel like one day we are going to all be stuck using "reusable toilet paper" lol

Stop biting your straw? Honestly though, Straw are much harder to recycle than other plastic products, and a completely un-needed luxury for most of the population. For the small percentage of the population that truly need them, and I mean NEED, there are other options such as metal straws, paper straws or special lids.

 

[Nubs70]

Google landfill citations refer to old landfill technology. Today's landfills are clay lined with impermeable membrane over top a leachate collection system. Once capped, methane collection systems divert methane to micro turbines to create electricity.

 

[Mawg]

I remember when we were suppose to not user paper and make sure we recycled it to save the rain forest. Now we should be using paper again. Soon we will be able to use CFC's again. It's all about what political/social agenda is popular and then we all need to jump on board or risk looking like someone or some company that does not care about the global environment. Does anyone else think this is kind of getting old. Seems like global warming is starting to get less and less chatter now.

 

[21stamps]

I remember when we were suppose to not user paper and make sure we recycled it to save the rain forest. Now we should be using paper again. Soon we will be able to use CFC's again. It's all about what political/social agenda is popular and then we all need to jump on board or risk looking like someone or some company that does not care about the global environment. Does anyone else think this is kind of getting old. Seems like global warming is starting to get less and less chatter now.

I don’t want a law that forces people to recycle or stop using plastic straws or bags.. but I do think it’s great that many businesses and people are going that route.
I’m not sure why everyone keeps saying this is new or are shocked.. the whole straw/bag thing has been around for at least a decade I think.

 

[Lets Respect]

They're keeping the paper straws? Is that a fact?

 

[DisAl]

So, If they are getting rid of hotel in-room plastics...does that mean the plastic cups they have in the rooms?
And does that mean that housekeeping will actually PROPERLY WASH the glasses in the rooms? Because those are filthy.

And what about the refillable cups that people pay so much money for. Once they are no longer refillable we have to buy more which causes Disney to use more plastics to make more cups that people will throw away eventually.

What about the paper cups in their hotel restaurants that people can only refill a few times. Then we have to throw them out.
What about all of the trees that are being killed to make those cups? They are not all 100% recycled.

If you're going to ban plastic because it's bad for the environment....then you have to ban EVERYTHING that can hurt the environment. That includes paper, soap, those jet flush toilets in the hotel rooms that waste water. Disney should limit the time people can spend in the shower because of water waste. Disney should not allow you to control your own room's thermostat because you could be using too much electricity with your air conditioner.

But what about food waste. Disney throws away so much food. All of the plants and animals that are killed to make the food we eat.
Shouldn't they ban meat products. And if they only allow vegetables then aren't we depriving the animals of their food source.

If Disney is going to go green...then they have to go all the way otherwise it's not making a difference.

Just asking for a friend.

FYI, the food waste along with other organic material is composted and used for fertilizer at WDW. Waste water is treated and then used for irrigation. WDW is probably more environmentally responsible than 90% of the companies in the U.S.

 

[skyphotographer]

But what about the trees, think about the trees. All those poor trees that will now have to be cut down to make those paper straws.