Seattle's plastic straw ban went into effect Sunday for the city's 5,000 restaurants, making the Emerald City the first major U.S. city to ban the single-use straws in food service, The Seattle Times reported.
Restaurants could be fined $250 for providing plastic straws, according to the newspaper. Customers at Seattle restaurants must request straws, in which case they will be given compostable straws, the Times wrote.
City officials hope the measure will decrease plastic waste that is dumped in landfills and encourage conservation areas there. An earlier campaign to get rid of straws in restaurants, dubbed "Strawless in Seattle," organized by Lonely Whale, claimed to have prevented 2.3 million plastic straws from entering the waste system last September, the Seattle Times wrote.
"We already know that plastic bags and soda can rings are bad for the environment and end up in the ocean," the Lonely Whale said on its website. "Few people realize that straws are among the top 10 items found during beach clean ups and can do so much harm to seabirds, turtles and other marine creatures."
"As an item of convenience for the vast majority of us, we believe refusing the single-use plastic straw is the easiest and simplest way for everyone to take action today to address plastic pollution," the website statement continued.
The Times wrote that other plastic utensils — including forks, spoons, knives, and cocktail picks are also banned, but restaurants can provide compostable alternatives for dine-in service, and compostable or recyclable take-out packaging.
The newspaper said that delis, coffee shops, food trucks, cafeterias, and grocery stores are required in the measure to comply with the new rules as well as restaurants.
"Plastic pollution is surpassing crisis levels in the world's oceans, and I'm proud Seattle is leading the way and setting an example for the nation by enacting a plastic straw ban," Mami Hara, general manager of Seattle Public Utilities, said last month about the ban, according to KOMO-TV.
"Our goal for the next year is to help all restaurants, food trucks, and food service operations shift away from plastic to compostable food service ware," Hara added.
Some business owners complained last year when the measure started to make its rounds that the straw ban is eating at their bottom lines, according to Reason.com. The website noted that plastic straws go for about $4.29 for a pack of 500, while the environmentally-friendly paper straws cost $25 for a pack of 400.
"For the last four to five years, something new is coming every time, and its cutting our bottom line," one small business owner told Reason.com. "Not only is it cutting our bottom line, we are decreasing our payroll, we are letting people go. We are giving people part time jobs, not the full time. The way things are happening, we will have to stand in our stores 24-hours."
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