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While you are correct, I do believe that these feel-good campaigns distract from the corporate polluters that cause the vast vast majority of these problems. I

• EForEndeavour 7y ago
  > If you get people fighting over straws which are some exceedingly small amount of overall ocean plastics and pollution, then no one's gonna pay attention to the real villains. Plastic straws are a negligible fraction of plastic pollution, but they represent much more than that. Viral attention on plastic straws serves as a convenient lever by which the broader topic of environmental stewardship is pushed to the forefront of peoples' minds, indirectly achieving the goal of cleaning up the world. At least, that's what I hope, not what I expect. Sure, some people will react with supercilious contempt at the hordes of selectively ignorant masses signalling virtue with their social-media images of strawless drinks. It's not like their personal choices are saving turtles, let alone the oceans. But this misses the point: the anti-straw campaign reminds entire populations that people collectively throw away too much plastic, and that things need to change -- at all levels, from the individual upward.